Starting a new forum

[Pete1977]

In my opinion this forum is a place to talk about knives and related subjects. Christianity is not a related subject. I am a Roman Catholic. I believe in God, Jesus, Mary, all of the Saints, etc. I recently had a discussion of Christianity with some Jehovah's Witnesses that paid me a visit while I was working on my lobster traps. They were not receptive to my beliefs. I have had a LDS or JW actually tell me to my face that I was doomed to Hell for praying to a saint and claim that wearing a medal of St. Jude was Idolatry... I worship in private and don't preach to others. I could really care less whether someone is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, Satanist or whatever. I don't particularly care for fundamentalist Christians preaching the Word. I find that they are the least tolerant of others' religions. Every one I have encountered has attempted to force their beliefs down the throat of "non-believers." There are plenty of places on the internet to discuss different religions. Find one of those. Don't bring it to Bladeforums. Unless of course we are discussing the type of sword Peter used to cut off Malchus' ear

A question to the OP...if there is a Christian forum, would you be as vocal for a Jewish forum or a Muslim forum? How about a forum for Atheists? Satanists? Why are you pushing for a Christian forum and not a Religion forum where people of different religions can discuss their beliefs? As you stated, if you don't like it you don't have to read it...Christians, Muslims and Jews all believe in the same God in different ways, don't they? Jesus was a prophet in Islam...Jesus was also a Jew...He is the common thread through the 3 major monotheistic religions...so why not have a forum where people can discuss ALL religions and not just Christianity? That seems pretty intolerant to me and aren't you claiming Bladeforums is intolerant for not allowing a Christianity dedicated forum?

Personally, i think you have a hidden agenda- otherwise, why would you have posted a Christianity based thread in a forum dedicated to Himalayan Imports? I don't think Christianity is the major religion of Nepal...You wouldn't be trying to convert Khukri collectors would you? You wouldn't be using Bladeforums as a pulpit would you? A forum dedicated to Christianity or Religion in general is completely non sequitur on a knife related website and pointless IMO...

 

[Planterz]

Well it seems that y'all just want to eradicate Christianity. Yes this is a knife forum, but there are other general interest forums here such as cooking and politics. Anyway, I just don't really see why it would bother you all so much. Just don't participate! Seriously, what's the big deal? You might have to see the word Christian when you go to the community forums page. Wow, I thought we prided ourselves on freedom and diversity in thus country.

To Esav: That thread contained alot of good discussion. Maybe you didn't personally agree with it. Well, nobody forced you to read it. There was quite a bit of garbage from people just looking to cause trouble. That is why a moderated Christianity forum would be benificial. There are thousands of Christians on this forum (I know many of Christian knifemakers). I think that there was enough interest in the thread I started to warrant it. You could start a Jewish forum too. Then we wouldn't have to read what each other says (just like the real world).

Let's be frank here. What you're really looking for is a forum where you can can say something like this and have everybody nod in agreement with you. What you aren't looking for is exactly what happened to that thread. Which is that it turned into a bit of a clusterfrak, an inevitable direction when discussing religion. Any attempts to moderate it, like you tried, can and will only be interpreted as you (or whomever) trying to silence those that you disagree with. As I said before, it's hard enough to get 2 Christians from the same denomination to agree, let alone between the various denominations. There's a reason there's so many - they can't agree with each other. Then you throw in the other religions, agnostics, and atheists, and you get a clusterfrak.

And in the scope of religious discussion, "Is Jesus God" is a relatively benign topic. You start talking abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, the sanctity of marriage, etc, and what you'll get is a maelstrom of anger and resentment. There's simply no way such a topic on a forum like this could not end up in a clusterfrak. You can't pour vinegar into baking soda and not expect a violent reaction. No more than you can try to convince an atheist that homosexuality is a sin because of Leviticus without the atheist lashing back at you.

Inevitably, in such a "discussion", the word troll get thrown around. But who's the troll? The Christian that started the thread, knowing full well the backlash it would cause, or the atheist who won't sit silent and have the Christian telling him what's right and what's wrong? You say that you're willing to moderate the discussion, but you're simply not capable. Nobody is capable of moderating such a forum. Not without it betraying the definition of "moderating". There were (are?) issues with this in the Political Arena, and they'd be many-fold if a Religion forum was started.

If you want to start your own Christian knifemaking forum elsewhere, I say go right ahead. If there's enough interest, people will show up for discussions. And you'll be able to find the trolls easily enough, because they'll show up purely to start crap and cause trouble. However, in Bladeforums, which is made up of so many different peoples who are already here, it's bound to only cause anger and resentment. It's just a Bad Idea®

 

[timcsaw]

Brother bennyb,

As a fellow brother in Christ, I admire your zeal and drive to reach the lost and think it is commendable. You must however pay attention to God's word in Mat 7:6.

Yes, there are Christians here, and there are those who may be on the cusp who are considering the Christian faith. There are also those here who understand the Gospel who have rejected Christ. When you try to help those on the cusp to further understand your faith in an open forum like this or the one you propose, everyone, from all positions will show up and in too many cases, the people on the cusp MAY get more bad influence than the good influence than you can offer. In this then, you may do more harm than good to those who are actually seeking the truth. They must wade through a minefield of information to try to discern what is good information and what is bad information concerning your/our faith.

There are good people here who are as adamant about their disbelief as you/we are about our belief and they will show up and try to disrupt the good you are trying to do.

I have involved myself in other forums on the web that are clearly meant to cater to believers (mostly Christian forums) where we Christians can explore Gods word and discuss our understandings of His word, and even in those forums, disbelievers come to attack and God's word and Christianity. They go out of their way to do this. They don't come to honestly seek answers, they come as an intentionally disruptive force to try to humiliate you, and God's word. They come to take something that you love so dearly, to tread it into the mud for their own enjoyment. In those forums however, since they are for Christians to "talk among themselves" about their Christian beliefs, moderators in those forums will infract or ban those who come to do damage. Here at Blade Forums, as in the rest of the world, there are people who would come to the Christian Forum you suggest, just to do damage and it would be unreasonable to expect any moderator to handle those people in the same way that they are handled at a Forum specifically set up for Christians to converse with each other. Those people who would come to do damage to the faith are NOT "bad people", they just have very strong opinions just like we do.

This is a knife enthusiast site, and it is not expected that only the religious can come here. It is welcomed to everyone. A Christian sub-forum would have to be open to everyone, and everyone's opinion would HAVE to be accepted EVEN if that opinion was highly offensive to you/me. Yes, you can say, "if you don't like the sub-forum's subject, just don't go there," but that is the equivalent to throwing money into the air in Times Square on new years eave... EVERYONE will come to grab some cash and you can't control who gets to keep it.... they will come... and you won't be able to control the damage done to the faith.

I am against a forum like the one you suggest, but perhaps for reasons different than others who've opposed it. I am against it because of the damage it does to the teaching of God's word.

I implore you again to read Mat 7:6, pray about it, consider the words of David Guzik who wrote that "our love for others must not blind us to their hardened rejection of the gospel. Our pearls of the precious gospel may only confuse unbelievers, who are blinded to the truth by the god of this age and may only expose the gospel to their ridicule."

Read his words in bold above again.

Then please understand that as a Christian (and as other Christians have commented)... CLOSE THIS THREAD. It's continued existence does damage to the faith, and to the faithful.

Please Brother... Close this thread.

 

[bennyb]

Thread closed.

 

[Blues]

How about this; this is not publicly owned venue. The folks that manage this place said no. Sometimes, no means no.

You have been given explanations that you don't seem to understand or feel take into consideration your personal beliefs or thoughts. It isn't your forum to shape or modify as you please.

If both Esav and Elliot said "no".... you would be better off hitting your head with a hammer than pursuing this thread.
...(snip) Time to move on.

Robert

Just for the record...neither Esav nor I said "no"...though we are not in favor of any religious forums on this site. That said, the final arbiter of all such questions on bladeforums is Spark.
We simply voiced our own personal opinions and thoughts on the matter.

(Edited to add that the thread has been closed by the OP and not the moderators of this site.)

 

[Spark]

Just chiming in with my two cents: As previously noted, religion is as divisive and as politics. We barely tolerate a politics forum on here, and in fact had to limit posting in it to paid memberships in order to prevent it from repeatedly going out of control. Religion would be even more of a problem. I'll create one, but I don't think you guys would like the cost involved in order to post in there. I think a reasonable amount would be a $1000 a year membership with a minimum of 30 people signing up for it.