Is Atheism the official stance of boards.ie on religion?

Delirium

Based on only the titles of those threads, it looks like an almost 50-50 split between atheist themed threads and Christian themed threads.

Daegerty

Isn't it about time that these threads are moved into the forum they are most appropriate for?

Its like atheists (and some christians as well) are using AH as their soap box. They have been doing it for years and its starting to get hugely annoying.

If I started a thead every week saying how great Linux is I'd probably be fecked out of it too.

seamus

AH is for discussion of general topics of popular interest in a free manner. Current events for the proletariat as it were.
Hence why politics are often discussed in AH when politics is topical, but without the more rigid rules and robust debate you'll get in Politics.

Religion falls into the same category. Often it becomes topical - when it's lent/ash wednesday/easter/good friday/christmas, then religion becomes a current event.

My name is URL

The threads in AH are getting a bit tiresome tbh. At least in political threads there's a bit of difference in who is posting and what arguments are being brought to the table. Whereas in the religion ones it seems to be the same people arguing the same points in every thread.

koth

koth wrote: »

Based on only the titles of those threads, it looks like an almost 50-50 split between atheist themed threads and Christian themed threads.

If I had time, I'd go through each thread and quote an example of the exact same argument against religion being argued by whoever. Basically more often than not, whatever the starting topic it becomes a debate about the wrongs or not of being religious.

Now I don't mind the humerous ones like "what are you giving up for length?" or "is JC ET?", they're funny.

If religion becomes topical whenever a feastday comes around, does that mean every feastday is going to correspnd with an "evils of religon" bunch of topics or "evils of religion" bunch of posts in feastday topics?

twinQuins

And why does it matter to you if it does? Can you not just ignore the topics like everyone who sees a topic they don't like or aren't interested in does?

Do you have to keep going into them to point out how sick of them you are?

twinQuins

twinQuins wrote: »

And why does it matter to you if it does? Can you not just ignore the topics like everyone who sees a topic they don't like or aren't interested in does?

Do you have to keep going into them to point out how sick of them you are?

Well, yeah. Otherwise it escalates. 1 thread becomes two from side topics in the original, two become four, one guy posts a misspelt drunken rant that get's locked, people start getting called names indirectly, and it just escalates until we get to a stage where a normal poster has to wade through a pile of crap to get to any decent threads & a giant locked sticky gets put at the top of the forum.

Anyways, I'm not against atheist or religious posts per se. I'm just asking (at this stage, because this is a related but seperate issue from the original post) that the "is he being a dick about it?" test be applied to all posts from all creeds.

twinQuins

I'm sorry but that looks like an incredibly specious slippery slope argument. AH goes through phases where certain topics will be discussed to death but that's just its nature as a forum where people discuss current events generally. Just because it's on a topic you don't like doesn't mean you have to ruin it for other posters.
As for going into threads with some vigilante sense of stopping an impending flood I think you'll find that's the job of the mods. If they think it's going to become a problem they'll be the ones to stop it.

And as for the don't be a dick rule being applied equally, I'd think you wouldn't need it pointed out that it is. Unless you're implying there's some sort of bias inherent in mod decisions.

gbee

I'd like to know why SeaSlacker seems to have the authority to dictate to the forum?

I think it's unhealthy for one poster to have so much to say, especially as their suggestions have more or less been rejected by the community.

How many more times do I have to hear a slightly different approach at censorship?

Surely the standard answer applies, if you don't like the post, stop reading it.

BUT, I will add that the mods moving posts around are making any situation worse, twice recently some of my posts were moved to thread that I was not participating in, including this one.

The meanings of the posts get lost and IMO, it tends to bundle unrelated thought processes into let's say the Atheists forum for argument's sake, despite a reference to atheism only having been used as a reference for the previous discussion and not a card holding, flag waving, atheist rally.

I'm now participating in 5, FIVE threads where I only actually answered in ONE originally. This is due to the moderation on these boards.

Thank you,
GB

Delirium

Deleted User wrote: »

If I had time, I'd go through each thread and quote an example of the exact same argument against religion being argued by whoever. Basically more often than not, whatever the starting topic it becomes a debate about the wrongs or not of being religious.

Now I don't mind the humerous ones like "what are you giving up for length?" or "is JC ET?", they're funny.

If religion becomes topical whenever a feastday comes around, does that mean every feastday is going to correspnd with an "evils of religon" bunch of topics or "evils of religion" bunch of posts in feastday topics?

But is that not just a case of threads being dragged off-topic?

Take the "is JC ET" thread for example. If someone comes in and just starts on that Jesus never existed, then it's up to posters to report them for OT posting and the mods to decide what to do about it.

I don't post in AH that much so I don't actually know what way OT posting is handled by the mods.

twinQuins

twinQuins wrote: »

And as for the don't be a dick rule being applied equally, I'd think you wouldn't need it pointed out that it is. Unless you're implying there's some sort of bias inherent in mod decisions.

You haven't really read what started this thread, did you? And, in fact, I'm happy with the outcome of the specific issue it addressed. I'm not the one who came back here and resurrected it.

gbee wrote: »

Surely the standard answer applies, if you don't like the post, stop reading it.

You do realise that can't be applied to all posts. What if someone posts a Neo-Nazi recruitment poster, or hardcore porn, or a libelous slur on a named person, or instructions on how to steal credit cards?

twinQuins

Deleted User wrote: »

You haven't really read what started this thread, did you? And, in fact, I'm happy with the outcome of the specific issue it addressed. I'm not the one who came back here and resurrected it.

Neither was I but then you haven't been content to let the issue lie as can be seen from your posts on AH and the thread you made. Hardly surprising that it would be brought up again here rather than continuing it on AH. And yes, I've read the thread from the time you posted it. It was shown that there's no bias but your comment:

the "is he being a dick about it?" test be applied to all posts from all creeds.

Would suggest you still think that mods are favouring atheists. Unless there's some other point that I've missed.

You do realise that can't be applied to all posts. What if someone posts a Neo-Nazi recruitment poster, or hardcore porn, or a libelous slur on a named person, or instructions on how to steal credit cards?

They're all quite clearly against the rules (and in more than one case could see boards in legal trouble) and I'm sure you know that. We're not alking about posts that are against the rules but posts and threads that you happen not to like.

gbee

Deleted User wrote: »

You do realise that can't be applied to all posts. What if someone posts a Neo-Nazi recruitment poster, or hardcore porn, or a libelous slur on a named person, or instructions on how to steal credit cards?

Seriously now, this is nonescence.

Overheal

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, yeah. Otherwise it escalates.

And then other actions take place. Typically moderation. Or these feedback threads. Your argument that suddenly AH will explode with religious subject matter if you aren't involved in the religious threads is nonsensical. People will say what they will when it comes to religion, the best thing to do is just stand back and let them blow off steam like a child throwing a tantrum in a mattress store: The bigger the blowout the longer the nap.

Look at how currently most of the talk of legalizing cannabis has been channeled into an easilly-ignorable megathread in Politics; or how discussions about Evolution/Creationism more or less are contained in another unbelievably large thread in the Christianity forum, full of people that demonstratively would knock over the furniture if they couldn't get their 20 posts per day in there on the same tired and inconclusive arguments. You don't have to ban them, you don't even have to listen to them: just keep them trapped in those big threads, like Minority Report.

Overheal

Overheal wrote: »

And then other actions take place. Typically moderation. Or these feedback threads. Your argument that suddenly AH will explode with religious subject matter if you aren't involved in the religious threads is nonsensical. People will say what they will when it comes to religion, the best thing to do is just stand back and let them blow off steam like a child throwing a tantrum in a mattress store: The bigger the blowout the longer the nap.

Look at how currently most of the talk of legalizing cannabis has been channeled into an easilly-ignorable megathread in Politics; or how discussions about Evolution/Creationism more or less are contained in another unbelievably large thread in the Christianity forum, full of people that demonstratively would knock over the furniture if they couldn't get their 20 posts per day in there on the same tired and inconclusive arguments. You don't have to ban them, you don't even have to listen to them: just keep them trapped in those big threads, like Minority Report.

*NON sarcastic*

Uhhh, yeah, that works for me!

If we do throw all this stuff into a Religion Mega-thread, can we call it "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny"?

Overheal

No, that thread already came and went: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055448391&highlight=ultimate+showdown+destiny

I still don't understand what all the fuss about Dr. Who was.

Daegerty

Maybe we can hang up a punch bag with a picture of the Pope on it in AH and the kb warriors can take out their anger on that instead.

twinQuins

Maybe certain people could just ignore the threads they don't like instead of reminding the posters in them they dislike them enough to keep responding to them.

Daegerty

twinQuins wrote: »

Maybe certain people could just ignore the threads they don't like instead of reminding the posters in them they dislike them enough to keep responding to them.

Ignoring them is getting harder by the day. the whole damn forum is like Atheism Lite at this stage

Overheal

Daegerty wrote: »

Ignoring them is getting harder by the day. the whole damn forum is like Atheism Lite at this stage

I hardly see how. On the first page theres 1 thread about keyboard warrior atheists, and another about good friday alcohol which i suppose is remotely a religious discussion. Then 1 about the bible. The rest is the queen of england, US gun rights, census, homosexuality, dirty sounding non-dirty things, the dole, child exploitation, cider, muggings, the lottery, jokes, country life, moving away from home, etc.

At various times AH becomes various things. 3 religion threads hasn't turned it into a church. Nor do 3 or 4 "OMG more violence in america" threads turn it into a hatefest, nor do 3 or 4 threads about politics in the loom of a general election turn it into the politics section.

If you want to browse back through feedback for threads about AH you will see at least every 6 weeks, a thread about someone whining that the AH forum has too many threads about topic X that person y does not want to read. It's hardly anything new. At least it's not a news station where they follow the same story for 3 weeks, only taking breaks to cut away for the latest tweet about lindsay lohan.

philologos

Daegerty wrote: »

Ignoring them is getting harder by the day. the whole damn forum is like Atheism Lite at this stage

See it as an opportunity. Ignore the more "trolly" types of posts. I prefer to see the true feeling that people have about my beliefs so that I can better engage with them if it is productive to do so (often it isn't in AH).

gbee

Jakkass wrote: »

See it as an opportunity. Ignore the more "trolly" types of posts. I prefer to see the true feeling that people have about my beliefs so that I can better engage with them if it is productive to do so (often it isn't in AH).

You've no right to do so anyway.

Daegerty

Jakkass wrote: »

See it as an opportunity. Ignore the more "trolly" types of posts. I prefer to see the true feeling that people have about my beliefs so that I can better engage with them if it is productive to do so (often it isn't in AH).

Why does it have to be in AH when there are other forums for that.

AH is supposed to be more for a bit of light hearted craic, none of this bitter anti-religious bickering atheists come out with, they have their own f00king forum for that

philologos

gbee wrote: »

You've no right to do so anyway.

To do what exactly?

Daegerty

Daegerty wrote: »

AH is supposed to be more for a bit of light hearted craic, none of this bitter anti-religious bickering atheists come out with, they have their own f00king forum for that

In fairness, it's more than just anti-religious bickering I'm against. I'd have the exact same attitude if religious keyboard warriors came amok in AH.

I don't care what you believe. If you're cool about it, I'm cool. If you're a red-hot narky whiner, then I'll roll my eyes and ridicule you.

Ridiculing serious folks is what makes AH special

gbee

If Jakkass and few more Christians here want to come down to Pana on a Saturday and stand on a soap box and preach their religion, I for one won't be there to listen to them.

If they want to hand me a leaflet I'll tell them to keep it.

It's totally bizarre the last post J made above, he tries to engage ..

It's gone beyond fun like, I never took ye seriously until this thread amalgamation and it just reinforces my own options and beliefs about rosary carrying missionaries.

Overheal

Deleted User wrote: »

In fairness, it's more than just anti-religious bickering I'm against. I'd have the exact same attitude if religious keyboard warriors came amok in AH.

Which come to think of it, happens very rarely. In the sense that the religious aren't typically the ones that instigate things.

twinQuins

Daegerty wrote: »

Why does it have to be in AH when there are other forums for that.

Why is any topic in AH when, more than likely, there's a specific forum for it? We even have a news forum.

AH is supposed to be more for a bit of light hearted craic, none of this bitter anti-religious bickering atheists come out with, they have their own f00king forum for that

Again, the same could be said of almost any topic in AH. Why concentrate on those that involve religion? Is it just because you don't like them? Because if it is I've two words for you: tough titties.

gbee

Shouldn't the Christian be in devotions fasting and giving up the Internet for 40 days? Not that I want an answer like or passages from the bibles, I won't read them.

philologos

gbee wrote: »

If Jakkass and few more Christians here want to come down to Pana on a Saturday and stand on a soap box and preach their religion, I for one won't be there to listen to them.

Most of the time it actually seems to be the atheists giving people a piece of their mind in respect to religion. I think it's entirely OK to be there to challenge them reasonably and gently.

gbee wrote: »

It's totally bizarre the last post J made above, he tries to engage ..

Indeed, that's kind of what boards.ie allows people to do with each others opinions.

gbee wrote: »

It's gone beyond fun like, I never took ye seriously until this thread amalgamation and it just reinforces my own options and beliefs about rosary carrying missionaries.

Admittedly I don't and I have never carried rosary beads. I wouldn't honestly know what to do with them. I do think that if atheists are going to go on about their issues with Christianity in AH I have the right to challenge them in a constructive manner.