Debating Christianity and Religion

One of the main keys to success in a debate forum is respect. You have to respect other people, even if they don't agree with you. And also you have to earn respect from others. Without respect, you might have the most convincing argument in the whole world, but nobody will listen to you.

So, here are some tips on how to earn respect:
- Show respect to others. If you do not respect others, don't expect any in return.
- Abide by the rules. Doing this will get you far in terms of respect.
- Take personal discussions offline. If you need to really dish it out with someone, send him a PM. Don't air it out in public.
- Pretend your English teacher will be grading your posts. If you use bad grammer, incomplete sentences, misspelled words, etc, then you'll get bad marks on your respect card.
- Pretend your Logic teacher will also be grading your posts. If you don't support your arguments with evidence and provide a clear logical thought process, then your Logic teacher will subtract from your respect score.
- DO NOT USE ALL CAPS IN YOUR POSTS LIKE THIS. Use proper sentence case like this.
- Preview your post before you submit it and check for errors, especially unclosed tags.

Respect is the key to debate.
While the person that screams up and down makes the more noise, and gets the most attention, the one who is quiet when needed and loud when nessecary gets the most done.

There remains an obvious double standard here in favor of those with the Christian view point. A non-christian was recently threated with probation for referring to another's comments as 'fecal matter' , yet Christians here have a habit of referring to comments as 'horse pucky'....now, if we are going to have such junior high standards and be concerned with such silliness , then enforce the idiotic rules evenly...

i say let it all pass....but wanted to comment.

Flail wrote:There remains an obvious double standard here in favor of those with the Christian view point.

Well, Christians have also accused the moderators of having double-standards in favor of non-Christians.

A non-christian was recently threated with probation for referring to another's comments as 'fecal matter'

I believe it was a non-Christian that gave the warning. Further, the moderator did not "threaten" with probation.

, yet Christians here have a habit of referring to comments as 'horse pucky'

If you see a rule violation, simply report it and it will get reviewed by a moderator. If a post is not reported, there is a high likelihood that a moderator will miss it.

Flail wrote:There remains an obvious double standard here in favor of those with the Christian view point. A non-christian was recently threated with probation for referring to another's comments as 'fecal matter' , yet Christians here have a habit of referring to comments as 'horse pucky'....now, if we are going to have such junior high standards and be concerned with such silliness , then enforce the idiotic rules evenly...

i say let it all pass....but wanted to comment.

To reinforce what otseng has posted, both sides claim double standards whenever a moderator posts a note, suggestion, intervention, or warning. What is sad is that it gets so petty that a theist might see an atheists post who required intervention but to avoid this non-existent double standard, we will ask a theist to intervene rather than do it ourselves. The same goes for the reverse. Everyone needs to realize that there is a fairly equal balance in moderators and administrators beliefs. Interventions, notes,suggestions, etc..... are reposted in the moderators forum to get others opinions on our posts. So if we post an intervention and other moderators see it different, then we address it. It wasn't so long ago that I had to do just that. So realize, we do our best to moderate. But there are 8 of us to monitor the entire forum. Posts will get missed and threads may go into a downward spiral before we catch up enough to intervene. We require your assistance in reporting posts that we miss.

To sum it up: there is no "double standard". It is nothing more than an illusion.

And there is a vast difference between mocking "horse pucky" and condescending "fecal matter". Granted, both should be avoided. But given the choice of expressions, one is definitely less offensive.

Flail wrote: A non-christian was recently threated with probation for referring to another's comments as 'fecal matter'

I am relatively certain that the person your talking about is me, so I will comment.

McCulloch, a non theist did note a moderator warning. In McCulloch's defense, he did not threaten me with anything. Just a Moderator note.

Truthfully, I think McCulloch admonishes me from time to time because he thinks I am capable of a more reasonable debate than I put forward at times.

Religion" in the motion been replaced by any other abstract noun, we would have won by 188 to nil. Suppose the word was "science". The motion would then have read "Free speech should be moderated by respect for science", and no reasonable person would vote for that - least of all a genuine scientist. So why is religion given its unique privileged status? After thousands of years, it has become the norm, so no-one ever thinks it needs justifying.
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valrossie
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valrossie wrote:Religion" in the motion been replaced by any other abstract noun, we would have won by 188 to nil. Suppose the word was "science". The motion would then have read "Free speech should be moderated by respect for science", and no reasonable person would vote for that - least of all a genuine scientist. So why is religion given its unique privileged status? After thousands of years, it has become the norm, so no-one ever thinks it needs justifying.

I agree, but there is a difference between saying "this religion and its practitioners are really dumb" and "this religion is hypocritical, perhaps, and here are the reasons".

Those are some pretty good rules to live by, Otseng.

My only suggestion -- and this is solely for the benefit of those who might have trouble remembering these guidelines -- is that you consider employing an acronym as a working title.

For instance:

- Show respect to others. If you do not respect others, don't expect any in return.
- Abide by the rules. Doing this will get you far in terms of respect.
- TTake personal discussions offline. If you need to really dish it out with someone, send him a PM. Don't air it out in public.
- Always pretend your English teacher will be grading your posts. If you use bad grammer, incomplete sentences, misspelled words, etc, then you'll get bad marks on your respect card.
- Not to mention your Logic teacher -- pretend that he or she will also be grading your posts. If you don't support your arguments with evidence and provide a clear logical thought process, then your Logic teacher will subtract from your respect score.
- Important: DO NOT USE ALL CAPS IN YOUR POSTS LIKE THIS. Use proper sentence case like this.
- Critique/preview your own posts before you submit them -- checking for errors, especially unclosed tags.

See? Instantly memorable!

That’s just an example, of course. -- I'm confident that you could come up with something more in line with your own beliefs.

I don't have perfect grammar and puntuation, nor do I have the time or energy to perfect it at this time with all the work I have in school. We're supposed to be working on grammar eventually from what I've heard. But I do hope whatever mistakes I make will be excused because while it isn't perfect I think it's acceptable imo. It is a goal of mines, just don't know when it will happen as of yet.

Something I wanted to mention though. I think it's very important that when someone tells someone else the reasons why they disagree with their beliefs that they don't get offended. People can easily get offended and feel greatly disrespected at why someone doesn't accept their beliefs. I understand if it's a personal attack, but some people choose to be one with their beliefs, which naturally makes them feel like it's a personal attack if their beliefs are attacked. I've seen it in people's facial expressions irl. While I can't tell over a forum if the samething is happening I'd imagine it probably happens everywhere.

So I think that as long as people remember this it will minimize any tension that can arise when debating sensitive yet serious topics(religion or politics).