Posted by mair on December 13, 2002, at 15:53:37
In reply to Re: please be supportive of religious faith » Dr. Bob, posted by NikkiT2 on December 12, 2002, at 9:34:39
I'm sure this suggestion will make me pretty unpopular and will certainly not be well received by the management, but I've come to the conclusion that the Faith Board should be eliminated AND that posters should be advised not to write about matters of religious belief or experience, except perhaps in the broadest terms.
There has been so much confusion about what is permissible and what is not, and I sense that many people feel severely constrained by the somewhat gerrymandered rules that have been established. From my observation there has been far more turbulence over the issue of what can and cannot be written on the faith board than over any other issue here - it's been a lightening rod for discord, not a refuge of support. It also seems to attract the fewest number of posters by a long shot - testament to what a slippery slope it may appear to be to the vast majority of posters.
Getting rid of the faith board will do nothing if the type of discord it stirs up is just transferred to another, more actively used, board. Because there are probably hundreds of web sites, message boards and chat rooms devoted to the discussion of religious belief and experience, I would advocate that it should just be made an inappropriate subject for this board. I realize that it may be highly relevant to many people, but from my observation, until a matter of several months ago, there was rarely any sort of post that touched on religious faith and experience. This site can hardly be all things to all people. It functioned quite nicely during a time when people were not invited to and did not attempt to discuss in any comprehensive way, matters of faith, it I think it could function quite nicely again if people were actively discouraged from discussing those same issues.
There's nothing wrong with giving something new (the faith board) a trial run, so long as you are willing to acknowledge that not every idea deserves a life beyond its usefulness.
With some trepidation...
Mair
poster:mair
thread:8516
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20021128/msgs/8538.html