My biggest problem with sosuave's moderation policy is that insulting groups of people, even groups numbering in the billions, is allowed. BUT if you have anything negative to say about that one individual who is insulting billions of other people, you had better keep it to yourself, pal, because that's personal. No personal insults are allowed. As soon as some little b!tch whines to the moderators, they'll ban you for insulting someone who started sh!t with you, unless you carefully craft your insult to include millions of other people as well. And that policy is just fvcking stupid.
I personally find it extremely easy to aggressively disagree with a person on a forum without resorting to Kindergarten-level name-calling and ad hominems. A man speaks volumes about himself when he reverts to that form of arguing.
"You are an [Insert insult here]" has zero power of persuasion, except to persuade readers that one is severely limited in his ability to argue convincingly. Hurling personal insults immediately shuts down credibility. Every time. It is nothing more than a "shotgun-esque" release of emotion. Quite the opposite of a man who possesses self-control and self-assuredness.
When a person makes a statement that can potentially offend groups of people, that person certainly opens himself or herself up for criticism. Calling that person a name in the form of a personal insult is the most ineffective way possible to refute their premise.
We have plenty of adults here, and plenty of children. The adults generally tend to refute ridiculous blanket statements against groups (such as Christians) with reasoned arguments. The children can only muster up names like "idiot" and "moron". Once that occurs, credibility vanishes into thin air. That is NOT directed at you,
@Bible_Belt. Just an observation about the guys who tend to default to personal attacks.
I am indeed considering closing down this thread for two reasons. One, there is a rule against threads about religion, put in place by Allen, the site owner, and that needs to be respected. Two, because the premise of the OP is exceptionally offensive to Christians and Christianity and shows a distinct lack of discernment and common sense. it also borders on trolling to get a rise out of people. Because of this, no one will be warned for reacting to the OP and I will soon lock the thread.
We mods, in spite of the rule about "No religious threads", have historically been extremely lenient and have let many of them go for quite some time because by and large, the men here have handled the threads well and have handled them respectfully.
As a personal aside, before I became a mod many moons ago, I found the rule about personal insults to be very reasonable and good for the quality of the site. I've also noticed that most members, by far, agree that a rule like this has to be in place in order to keep the forum orderly and keep the drama down to a dull roar.
When insults start flying around, it just shows how meager one's arsenal is when it comes to debate. By attacking a foolish premise or point (instead of the person behind the premise), a man has credibility and his arguments, along with the self-evident ridiculousness of the OP, deal a swift death-blow to the premise.
There's nothing wrong with pointing out the foolishness of a man's premise or opinion about a matter. Spirited debate is a part of healthy manhood. The problem occurs when name-calling starts happening. It's very tedious to wade through the kindergarten-level insults to find the meat in a thread. These personal insults are nothing more than pollution and trash that only gets filtered out as such in the long run. It's like walking along a littered beach, trying to enjoy the place but being preoccupied with stepping around the garbage that's laying around.
As I always say, there's nothing wrong with some fair head-butting and strong debate. This place isn't a Sunday school. I do, however, think it's a worthy thing for a man to challenge himself to avoid falling into the easy shot of name-calling, because after all, it's nothing more than a quick release of emotion that has the nasty side-effect of trivializing a man's credibility.
I'm going to close this thread but I would never do that without giving B_B a chance to respond, as I'm kind of replying to him but also expanding to my thoughts in general. You have the last word if you get back here in time before I have to lock the door on this one.
