Why, oh, why do I venture into R/T?

[Jo March]

Why do I do that to myself? I try to post thoughtful reponses and end up getting flamed and abused and yelled at.

And the PMs. boy, do I get PMs...

:banghead:

[hvn_nbr_2]

1. I wander into there occasionally, hoping to find something of value.

Usually, reading two or three posts in a couple threads is enough to remind me why I've stayed away. Sometimes just reading the OP subjects does it. But I almost never post anything there. Anything I'd say would be telling some people what they already know and telling others something that they know couldn't be so, so why waste electrons?

One thing I wonder about though. Why do so many atheists hang out in "religion/theology"? Isn't that kind of like vegans hanging out in "grilling mammal flesh"?

[Jo March]

2. You're last line literally made me LOL!

Some genuinely want to discuss topics that have to do with religion. Others just want to disrupt.

I post and try to be thoughtful and kind and no one replies to me. Let me get upset, however, and BAM! The sharks circle.

I really like 99.9% of DUers but that 0.1%...well, they just try my patience.

[Critters2]

3. Sharks. That's exactly what they are. nt

[okasha]

4. Not really.

More like goldfish who'd be somebody's lunch in a nanosecond outside their little bowl.

[RevCheesehead]

5. That would be sardines, wouldn't it?

:evilgrin:

[okasha]

6. LOL-- My aunt used to call shrimp "gusanos"--worms.

That's kind of how I feel about sardines. I went to a Catholic school that had them almost every Friday. (Oh dear, is that evidence of Christian persecution of fish? Baaaad Sisters!)

[TreasonousBastard]

7. That'll get ya flamed...

ever notice how that question gets asked every so often and they fly out with guns blazing?

Some of 'em answer that they just like the discussion, which is OK, but then the ones who insist we have no right to ask the question...

Last year there was a kerfuffle over a few of them in the atheists group organizing to troll some of the threads in R/T. When they got caught they started PMing, but the worst offenders were tombstoned. A couple are still around, but they're not deliberately causing trouble. That we know of.

[RevCheesehead]

8. Some of them trolled this group, too.

Last year was very, very ugly. A lot of good people stopped posting in here because of all the animosity. :(

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Good thing I missed all that...

I was probably a mod at the time and the big problems were in R/T. Didn't get much chance to actually read the threads or forums that didn't have tons of alerts.

But, I see some kinda come back in here every so often-- all innocent-like...

[RevCheesehead]

10. That's why I avoid that black hole of despair.

I love talking about religion, and I speak, eat, and breathe theology. But I will NOT venture into that forum.
Besides, I go to DU to unwind from church craziness. The last thing I need is more arguing and animosity.

Yeah, the Pope wars and Schiavo case was pure hell. And it all happened around Easter, too. I wanted to post "Christ is risen - and he says for y'all to shut the fuck up!!!"

[TreasonousBastard]

11. I hear ya, but I'm not so...

involved, and go over to R/T every so often to "shut them up with love"

Couple of people in R/T I actually get along with pretty well. I guess the trick is not to take it very seriously over there--roll with the trolls.

Here, anyone pulling that crap I'd try to get banned from the group. Did you know Admins can bar any of us from posting to specific forums or groups if enough people complain? Happens all the time with some of the jerkier guys trolling the women's groups.

[RevCheesehead]

12. That's exactly what happened to some of the troublemakers.

Sometimes "ignore" is not enough.
And kudos to the mods who monitor this group. They've been extremely fair and helped immensely in ending the nastiness. :toast:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Sigh, I get really tired of all the people who seem to think that

if we "find out" that the earth wasn't created in six days or that some other religion has a flood story or that the witch persecutions were evil, then we'll "wise up" and become "enlightened" atheists like them.

Like the Soviet educational system, whose programs to promote atheism included analyzing the chemistry of bread making and wine making to prove that these items couldn't literally turn into the body and blood of Christ, they miss the point. In that and other ways, Soviet efforts to promote atheism missed the point, because they didn't understand that religion is experiential.

In a fascinating book from the 1970s, Anti-Religious Propaganda in the Soviet Union, the author points out that Intourist guides always told tourists that only old people went to church. And indeed, that's what it looked like. The churches were full of the elderly and not much of anybody else. However, Soviet tour guides had been pointing that out since the 1920s. So for fifty years, "only old people" attended church. But of course, they couldn't possibly have been the SAME old people from 1929 to 1979.

I've tried to use the analogy of looking at someone else's love relationship and not understanding why Person A is crazy about Person B when WE find Person B to be boring, ugly, or even infuriating. In real life, mature people don't go around saying, "You're an idiot to be in love with that person" unless they think that Person B. is actually abusive to Person A. And even then our words are unlikely to have any effect.

But what really made me stop posting in R/T was the way that theists could not state their understanding of what atheism is without getting jumped all over. I can understand their irritation at having their worldview labeled a religion, because it clearly isn't, but there were a couple of characters over there who were all ready to define theists as believers in fairy tales or pink leprechauns but who would get highly offended at ANYTHING, even attempts to use neutral language, that theists said about them.

[unhappycamper]

14. Locking.

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