Complaints about threads

6th

I know ... i have a problem

Orion

Karl Hungus wrote:

I couldn't find a pitchfork, but I do have a trowel, can I still be in on the fun?

I've got a metal thingy that I use to um ... dig food.

Orion

Talliesin wrote:

It has been said that "anyone constructing pipe-bombs from instructions they have found on the Internet has too many fingers for their own good".

This is usually a self-correcting problem :eek:

Terry

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I may have unintentionally started a thread under "feedback" by asking if anyone knew of a method for submitting overall rather than particular complaints.

I would not like a child, a person experiencing some sort of crisis or a naive, credulous individual to be exposed to people who believe in psychic powers, astrology, paranormal activity, etc. etc.

I've avoided the use of inverted commas above in case I offend believers.

as opposed to those who might be taken in by the christian faith(s), islam, judaism, scientology, buddhism etc?

Jackie laughlin

I take it the tidying up done was removing my words. This was a particularly aggressive act of censorship since I had been asked to explain my objections. I took great care not to cause offence. I am now more perturbed than before.

odonnell

...and should have posted this as a PM to a mod, or under a different thread heading, now youre just being rude by thread hijacking.

Didnt you read the rules?

Jackie laughlin

I can see now that there is a discussion going in feedback. It has 60+ postings. I'll have to return to it another time.

I'm not happy about the concept of personal messages in a forum. Seems like an oxymoron to me. I would prefer that everyone see what is said.

I'm beginning to see the limitations of the site.

Jackie laughlin

O'Donnell,
I've not the slightest intention of being rude.

I assure you that I'm new to discussion sites. I contribute to just one other one.

I have never seen the term "thread hijacking" before.

My posting here which expressed concern was REQUESTED in a couple of other posts.

stevenmu

<previous 4 posts moved over from Spirituality forum>

Gordon

Jackie, feel free to air your concerns on this thread. Hopefully the rowdy rabble here will let this thread breathe for a while!

BlitzKrieg

why is it when someone is complaining about religion or spirituality or something their posts read so formally and polite...its creepy.

stormkeeper

Macros42 wrote:

I've got a metal thingy that I use to um ... dig food.

A spork?

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I'm not happy about the concept of personal messages in a forum. Seems like an oxymoron to me. I would prefer that everyone see what is said.

In fairness, not everything needs to be aired out in the open as after all, people do have a right to privacy, no matter where it is. Private messages are sometimes used to share contact details when a sale has been concluded, as well as facilitate private discussion not related to any thread, or perhaps related to one (that could be potentially embarressing for a person), among other things. Not everyone would want their phone number, email, MSN, etc. displayed in public after all.

I understand and appriciate the need for private messages, as they are, in some ways, an extension of email. Nearly every message board (with the exception of one) that I've been on has private messaging, and I'm sure that if you asked the admins of any of those boards to disable private messaging, they wouldn't agree to it.

It was also stated in the thread that you commented in initially that the minimum age for partcipation in the spiritual/psychic circle was 18, so no children would be allowed to participate in it. Also, there is the issue as well that everyone is entitled to their beliefs, though not at the expense of someone elses. I was actually interested in the paranormal at quite a young age, heck, I had strange happenings with me as a child. I was lucky to have a mother that let me have my own beliefs about things, and supported me with whatever I did. At the end of the day, those of us who believe in such things are a rational, sane (relatively!) bunch who very much have our heads screwed on. We've always been very careful about such things.

Now I could ramble on a lot more about this issue, but I'm repeating some of the points made by others as it stands, and most likely would repeat what others have said previously anyway. Either way, at the end of the day, there are worse things to be concerned about; spirituality and the paranormal, provided they are done in the right way are relatively harmless. Take it from someone who has officially been in the field for two years now, and hope to be in it for many more.

Over here in the UK, people are much more open towards it, I have noticed. The impression I get over in Ireland is that people think this sort of thing is "The Devil's Work," when in reality (depending on the topic), it's either another way of thinking about or interacting with the world around us, or another set of beliefs. Either way though, it's relatively harmless*, so I really don't see a problem here. In a way, it's like saying computer games and movies have influenced those people accused of killing/injuring people in shootings, when evidence has proven this not to be the case.

In my honest opinion, if you aren't very mentally stable to begin with, you really should not be getting involved with such things; if you are of a sound, discernable (I think that is the right word to use here) mind, then you will have no problems with any topics, as at the end of the day, you'll either believe in it, or not believe in it, simple as that. Of course, there are always individuals somewhere that take a thing too far, and are unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions, using the likes of movies or games to explain their actions.

I really need to stop rambling now, heh. But to make an ending note: there are far worse things out there to be involved with.

Nevyn

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I take it the tidying up done was removing my words. This was a particularly aggressive act of censorship since I had been asked to explain my objections. I took great care not to cause offence. I am now more perturbed than before.

All the posts that were deemed off topic were removed inlight of there being a thread here, yours were not the only ones that were deleted.
This forum is the right place to air your objections as the owners of the site read this forum and would not read the spirituality forum with out provocation to do so.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I would prefer that everyone see what is said.

I have no problems with that which is why I suggested that you start a thread here in the first place.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

My posting here which expressed concern was REQUESTED in a couple of other posts.

Part of a mods job is to keep threads coherant so that they don't go wildly off topic or get derailed or hijacked as it were.

You are most welcome to come back and air your views and concerns I look forward to reading them.

Hobbes

Just a note that Private Messages is a somewhat miswording of the system. The messages are far from private. Its like saying Email is secure and private.

So while it sucks if someone posts your PM you sent to them if you didn't want it public you shouldn't of sent it in the first case.

John

Personally I think Jackie Laughlin is overeacting. Coming at this from an objective viewpoint, if one of these fora (spirituality and paranormal) are made over 18s then all the religion fora should also be made over 18s.

stevenmu

I think Jackie's point about PMs is that it's not an appropriate means for her to raise her issue, which she feels should be aired in public. I agree with her on that, PMing some mods to ask them to close their forum down is never going to be very productive.

6th

Jackie, as someone personally involved with the thread you air your original grieviences in, I would like to know exactly what you have a problem with?

I am genuinely interest and hope you post your feelings here and allow us to respond.

Jackie laughlin

I seem to have generated quite an amount of controversy. I’ve also attracted a degree of abuse. One contributor even found my temperate tone scary! Being temperate, bordering on reverential, doesn’t come naturally to me.

I happened upon the “Spirituality” thread and went in to take a look. I was shocked to the point that I raised the question of censorship. I did not advocate it. I regret raising it now; it was a kneejerk reaction. I accept that people (including children) cannot and should not be protected from words and most other expressions. Wilful stupidity is common. I generally don’t believe in strong media effects.

I had been dismissive of the new age spirituality fashion but I found the gothic beliefs and the seriousness in the thread startling. I don’t think people reading up their starsign for the week or going to a mystic, psychic or fortune teller for a laugh is problematic. However, the contributors to this thread are not having a laugh.

Yes, I’m of a sceptical frame of mind. I admire the western enlightenment tradition. On another thread I’m defending myself for saying that the Islamic view on inequality should be subjected to liberal western criticism and ridicule. In other words, I believe it a deformation of the notion of tolerance to accept everyone’s point of view as equal and immune to challenge. That’s not tolerance but extreme relativism.

I’m not competent with the quote button but here are two examples from the thread:

“It would not be as appropriate to vet people attending as it might be with some of the situations that I have come across in my psychic development (ie closed groups or tight networks of friends) you need to recognise the negatives of this and find soloutions before they bite you in the ass. It would be very irresponsable to open up inexperianced people psycically only to have a psychic vampire sort or, mind rapists or controllers, astral intruders, fundies of some nature or general misfits come along to disturb things, mot to mention the energy entities and thoughtforms that would be immediatley attracted. (and believe me, from personal experiance, even with precautions these things almost always happen) Needless to say, these sort of events can be totally catastrophic to a person. Also, one of the primary methods to open an individual in this way is through guided meditation and this if done in an incorrect way can also be detrimental to the development of a person spiritually and psychically.”

And another,
“Psychometry, no problem with that or pendalum work.
Aura reading well that has several dangers to both parties and a whole heap of applictions what ones will be covered ?
Contacting spirit guides this would be to my mind a possible mindfield.”

Now, I regard this as dribbling idiocy but the contributors themselves are pointing to dangers. There cannot be any physical danger. Clearly the danger is to someone who might be frightened by the “Hammer Horror” terminology or might find false refuge in a time of crisis. However, if the people on the thread truly believe that they are into something dangerous, they should stop.

I’m an ordinary citizen and in a free society it’s probably up to the likes of me to challenge psychics, healers, clairvoyants, astrologers, numerologists, alchemists, angel aficionados etc. etc. However, that apparently is not allowed in their own threads. I realise that some of these people are unfortunate true believers but there’s also exploitation on an industrial scale in the sale of books, objects, cures, therapies. The latter group are charlatans.

On balance I think that “religion” is not the place for “spirituality” – although that might seem paradoxical – mainly because so many of the believers insist that they have nothing to do with religion. There is a “sceptics” category and it might be twinned with “spirituality”. Certainly, the views should not be immune to criticism and ridicule. (I’ve been adding “ridicule” lately because it’s become important to mention it since the Islamic cartoon controversy.)

BlitzKrieg

However, that apparently is not allowed in their own threads

as has been stated numerous times by mods and other posters, your comments were not removed because you challanged 'them' but because you interupted and drove offtopic another discussion in progress.

If you had started a seperate thread, i cannot vouch completely for the mod, but i expect you wouldnt have your comments deleted unless you got aggressive or offensive.

Or if you had fully fleshed out your complaint here in feedback (as you have done above) you would have recieved a more formal thought out response, rather then the jokes and confusion that has filled the first part of this thread. Those comments appear because you had not actually given any concrete opinion and the other posters either made fun of your obscurity or relied on here say information.

One contributor even found my temperate tone scary!

If this is referring to my earlier comment, i didnt say scary, i said CREEPY, there's a subtle difference, and it wasnt directed straight at you, but at the general tone I find a number of posters who wish to oppose something they see as morally/spiritually wrong become excessivly polite and formal. Which I find creepy. Of course a contrast is when you get racist nutjobs on board who scream out 'They took our jobs' and go into a typing seizure. But at least those are reassuring in that the poster only has 2 brain cells. The creepy polite ones reek of someone forcing themselves to behave and never feel genuine...hence Creepy.

The Sweeper

Or you could just merge everything in the religion sub-categories under a single forum called 'belief systems' and let them all debate it out.

amp

I have a complaint about this thread. It's lacking owls. Maybe not owls, but certainly a nocternal bird of some description. Yes.

Crucifix

amp wrote:

I have a complaint about this thread. It's lacking owls. Maybe not owls, but certainly a nocternal bird of some description. Yes.

Finally someone with a proactive attitude. I saw the start of this thread and set a mental note to come back when it reached 5 or 6 pages to check out the funny pictures. And all I get is rational debate?! Frankly, I'm a little disapointed.

Talliesin

Jackie laughlin wrote:

This was a particularly aggressive act of censorship since I had been asked to explain my objections.

Hands up everyone that sees the irony in this statement.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I took great care not to cause offence.

Moderators of that forum can see deleted posts, and your "is this a joke" comment is still visible to us. Don't try to bull**** us.

6th

Ok Jackie, finally glad to get your opinions out of you but they are merely that - opinions. Your thoughts on elements of spirituality are no more "right" than mine or anyone elses so i guess we wont be converting each other?

I seriously doubt its gonna have any affect on the spirituality forum and tbh I think its almost unfortunate that you happened across that forum as there are others that i'm sure would have shocked you more i.e. the Paranormal Forum.

But why stop with boards? as other shave said there are alot worse things on the internet than a place where people discuss their beliefs (soryy they dont fit in with your btw) in a (mostly) rational manner.

So now i'm not too sure what you want to happen? would you like everyone to have the same opinions and beliefs as you so we can close down these forums?

And as for you receiving some abuse about this on here .... it's Boards .... abuse comes with the territory, i've gotten some beauties

6th

Talliesin wrote:

Hands up everyone that sees the irony in this statement.

:Raises both hands: (spills tea )

Jackie_laughlin wrote:

I took great care not to cause offence.

Really? cos i took offence for about 2 seconds and then realised that eventually, one day you'll see we are right

stevenmu

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I seem to have generated quite an amount of controversy. I’ve also attracted a degree of abuse. One contributor even found my temperate tone scary! Being temperate, bordering on reverential, doesn’t come naturally to me.

Personally I appreciate your temperate tone, too many people get hysterical when they wish to argue something which ends the argument before it even begins, and I'd like to thank you for that.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I happened upon the “Spirituality” thread and went in to take a look. I was shocked to the point that I raised the question of censorship. I did not advocate it. I regret raising it now; it was a kneejerk reaction. I accept that people (including children) cannot and should not be protected from words and most other expressions. Wilful stupidity is common. I generally don’t believe in strong media effects.

I agree with you on most of this.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I had been dismissive of the new age spirituality fashion but I found the gothic beliefs and the seriousness in the thread startling. I don’t think people reading up their starsign for the week or going to a mystic, psychic or fortune teller for a laugh is problematic. However, the contributors to this thread are not having a laugh.

In general we are not, altough sometimes I do take a step back and have a little giggle at something I've written that's particularly crazy sounding. While we do take it seriously I don't see how that is problematic. None of us encourage others to take on our beliefs, and we're not encouraging anybody to do anything which may be harmfull to themselves or others. The forum merely provides an outlet of expression for people who already want such an outlet.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Now, I regard this as dribbling idiocy but the contributors themselves are pointing to dangers. There cannot be any physical danger. Clearly the danger is to someone who might be frightened by the “Hammer Horror” terminology or might find false refuge in a time of crisis. However, if the people on the thread truly believe that they are into something dangerous, they should stop.

The danger being referred to is more mental and emotional than directly physical. I do agree that the terminology used is somewhat melodramatic, and I hope that whoever originally coined some of the phrases was being at least a little tongue-in-cheek. Psychic vampires for example are not winged creatures that sneak into your room to feast on you at night. They're a particular type of regular person we all come in contact with every day. They're the kind of person you get into a conversation with and no matter what direction the conversation takes it always turn back to them, and any relationship you engage in with them becomes purely focused on them and serving their needs. Spending any amount of time with them leads to you feeling drained, like you've had the life sucked out of you, hence the term vampire. Whatever people's beliefs I think we've all met people like that, and while no one's going to drop dead from an encounter with such a 'psychic vampire' I think we can all agree they are best avoided where possible.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I’m an ordinary citizen and in a free society it’s probably up to the likes of me to challenge psychics, healers, clairvoyants, astrologers, numerologists, alchemists, angel aficionados etc. etc. However, that apparently is not allowed in their own threads.

I'm not sure why you feel it is your duty to challenge such people they/we do nothing to harm you in any way. The reason it is not allowed within spirituality threads is because, as I point out above, the forum exists to allow people express and discuss their beliefs. If people's beliefs are being challenged on every thread then that will kill any discussion taking place. The forum is there for people who wish to discuss their ideas or to learn more about other peoples. For example somebody may come to the forum wishing to learn more astrology. If somebody replies to their question that 'it is all a load of BS, don't go anywhere near it', that will probably prevent any discussion of the subject taking place. I would prefer that people who believe in and have some understanding of astrology would reply, explaining what it's about and how it's supposed to work and so on. Then the original poster can choose for themselves what to believe. One thing sceptics who want to challenge believers tend to forget is that we are capable of being sceptical too, and we already know many if not of all of the sceptical arguments against something.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I realise that some of these people are unfortunate true believers but there’s also exploitation on an industrial scale in the sale of books, objects, cures, therapies. The latter group are charlatans.

That is true, there are a lot of charlatans out there, we certainly don't allow any exploitation to occur through the forum, and we do warn people to be wary of charlatans where appropriate.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

On balance I think that “religion” is not the place for “spirituality” – although that might seem paradoxical – mainly because so many of the believers insist that they have nothing to do with religion. There is a “sceptics” category and it might be twinned with “spirituality”. Certainly, the views should not be immune to criticism and ridicule. (I’ve been adding “ridicule” lately because it’s become important to mention it since the Islamic cartoon controversy.)

I don't know where to begin disagreeing with you about twinning spirituality with the sceptics forum, but I do agree that a certain amount of ridicule can be a healthy thing when done in an appropriate place and manner. I have seen various new-age jokes around the internet most of which were quite good humoured, it might be an idea at some point to start a humour thread on Spirituality to put some in.

monkeyfudge

amp wrote:

I have a complaint about this thread. It's lacking owls. Maybe not owls, but certainly a nocternal bird of some description. Yes.

Behold!

The Southern Boobook!

stevenmu

Excellent, are owls excempted from the sig rules ?

Hobbes

Jackie laughlin wrote:

“Hammer Horror” terminology

lol. You do know Hammer research thier material, so they didn't invent it.

I’m an ordinary citizen and in a free society

Well if you had your way it wouldn't be a free society, unless you changed free to "Only things that I find normal".

However, that apparently is not allowed in their own threads.
...
Certainly, the views should not be immune to criticism and ridicule.

There is a skeptics forum. Your free to post in there.

Think of it this way. Lets say I set up a "Picard from Star Trek is god!" group in my local scout hall. We meet every week and discuss how great Picard is and how everyone should love Picard, etc.

Then you show up one day and go "OMG Everyone knows Kirk is better". People there might get a bit upset but would discuss how great picard is to get thier point across. But you can't be swayed, you continue on with your Kirk mantra.

At this point as the subject is picard so they may ask you to leave or stay on topic. You might not like this, but at that point if you were to continue they would remove you from the hall.

Now you appear to have the group removed from the hall because they don't believe what you do, although granted running around quoting Shakespere is dangerous for kids.

You are not being stopped from disputing what you might read, but as the people in that forum shouldn't have to always defend themselves from attack you have other areas in which to question your issues.

Islam forum is a good example. There are quite a few boards members that had kittens that the forum existed, however they are not stopped from voicing thier issues on Islam, just not in that forum. Threads created that may look like that they could be an issue are moved to a forum where the discussion would continue without upsetting the muslims who use that forum (and they are free to follow the thread to talk on the subject).

I realise that some of these people are unfortunate true believers but there’s also exploitation on an industrial scale in the sale of books, objects, cures, therapies. The latter group are charlatans.

Actually you are trying to infer they all are.

Heres a quote to end on.

"They also held that the way to salvation was to give way to lust and temptation in all things. And no greater percentage of them turned up here than of any other religion. Amusing, isn't it?" - Lucifer "Seasons of Mists".

monkeyfudge

stevenmu wrote:

Excellent, are owls excempted from the sig rules ?

Technically it's not actually an owl... so you won't be able to use that loophole... so here is a sig-friendly version: