Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:to 11:07 -- you can sign up for a user name here anytime.

The problem is, the posters with good intentions will do this. Unhinged Atheist won't, and I also suspect her of sock-puppetting herself. Anybody who wants to say something mean and then return under a username with a reasonable persona will just log out, flame someone up, and then log back on.

Anonymous wrote:to 11:07 -- you can sign up for a user name here anytime.

Anonymous wrote:Diplomatic atheist here. I'm still not convinced unhinged atheist is an atheist. They were giving me an inordinately hard time about my positions as well. I think they are generally extremely contrary.

Remember Josh Duggar was a super conservative Christian in real life and a cheating womanizer online. Anonymous online forums bring out the worst in people. That poster seems very unhappy and their primary goal appears to be trying to push people's buttons.

Not saying they AREN'T am atheist of course, but they appear to be arguing both sides of the fence depending on their adversary.

Anonymous wrote:Diplomatic atheist here. I'm still not convinced unhinged atheist is an atheist. [i]They were giving me an inordinately hard time about my positions as well.[b] I think they are generally extremely contrary.

Remember Josh Duggar was a super conservative Christian in real life and a cheating womanizer online. Anonymous online forums bring out the worst in people. That poster seems very unhappy and their primary goal appears to be trying to push people's buttons.

Not saying they AREN'T am atheist of course, but they appear to be arguing both sides of the fence depending on their adversary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:to 11:07 -- you can sign up for a user name here anytime.

But when PP refers to a particular poster it's not clear who he means. It seems like he's blending different into one. I think usernames would cut down on the generalizations.

Anonymous wrote:to 11:07 -- you can sign up for a user name here anytime.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this whole "I have a right to state my opinion without your input" thing is way off-base.

A chat forum is about LISTENING to each other. Not about hurling insults and ducking for cover. Good grief.

Better would be a standard of civil discussion, based on, you know, promoting *listening* to each other.
-- Someone may think/believe you're going to hell, but 1. what earthly purpose does it serve to tell a non-believer that?
-- Someone may think 2. faith is "stupid" but be mature enough to withhold that opinion because they know it just shuts down conversation.

Now if the whole purpose of this forum is to shout insults and duck for cover, then it's a waste of time and cyberspace. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what the unhinged atheist thinks.

1. Fundamentalist Christians believe it's serving the very important purpose of giving non-believers (or non-Christians) a chance to change their beliefs and afford themselves of eternal life by proclaiming Jesus Christ as their savior.

2. Non-believers may have been released from what they consider to be the bondages of faith upon determining for themselves that "faith is stupid" and think that saying so on an anonymous forum may help others wrestling with the inconsistencies of faith to reach the same conclusion.

So it's not so cut and dry. We have a nice concept in the US of respecting others' religious beliefs, but it's really about respecting others' right to have divergent beliefs. We really do think some of the beliefs others hold are weird or wrong. This is understandable given that some religions teach that theirs is the only correct one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this whole "I have a right to state my opinion without your input" thing is way off-base.

A chat forum is about LISTENING to each other. Not about hurling insults and ducking for cover. Good grief.

Better would be a standard of civil discussion, based on, you know, promoting *listening* to each other.
-- Someone may think/believe you're going to hell, but what earthly purpose does it serve to tell a non-believer that?
-- Someone may think faith is "stupid" but be mature enough to withhold that opinion because they know it just shuts down conversation.

Now if the whole purpose of this forum is to shout insults and duck for cover, then it's a waste of time and cyberspace. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what the unhinged atheist thinks.

PS. I should add that "opinion" is so easily a cover for insults.

Case in point: Unhinged Atheist is arguing that her "opinion" is that faith is stupid and believers are stupider, so she's justified repeating this ad nauseum here. Even though, clearly, she has no purpose besides shutting down threads and getting up peoples' noses.

Which another reason why the test of "it's my opinion" fails. Not only do (1) adults realize sometimes their opinions don't contribute to discussions and can instead derail them, but (2) "it's my opinion" is a Trojan horse for the trolls here.

What to do instead? There seems to be general agreement here that belief/disbelief are not choices (contrary to the "conformist" posters on both sides). So treat people here like you'd treat anybody else who can't help being what they are. Do you insult your friend's short haircut if she can't grow it out tomorrow? Worse, do you you insult the person in the wheelchair? Oh wait. All of us knew that. Yet unhinged atheist and smug evangelical are incapable of doing it when religion is involved.

Anonymous wrote:I think this whole "I have a right to state my opinion without your input" thing is way off-base.

A chat forum is about LISTENING to each other. Not about hurling insults and ducking for cover. Good grief.

Better would be a standard of civil discussion, based on, you know, promoting *listening* to each other.
-- Someone may think/believe you're going to hell, but what earthly purpose does it serve to tell a non-believer that?
-- Someone may think faith is "stupid" but be mature enough to withhold that opinion because they know it just shuts down conversation.

Now if the whole purpose of this forum is to shout insults and duck for cover, then it's a waste of time and cyberspace. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what the unhinged atheist thinks.

Anonymous wrote:I think this whole "I have a right to state my opinion without your input" thing is way off-base.

A chat forum is about LISTENING to each other. Not about hurling insults and ducking for cover. Good grief.

Better would be a standard of civil discussion, based on, you know, promoting *listening* to each other.
-- Someone may think/believe you're going to hell, but 1. what earthly purpose does it serve to tell a non-believer that?
-- Someone may think 2. faith is "stupid" but be mature enough to withhold that opinion because they know it just shuts down conversation.

Now if the whole purpose of this forum is to shout insults and duck for cover, then it's a waste of time and cyberspace. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what the unhinged atheist thinks.

Anonymous wrote:

Op here. It's actually gone better than expected. I think there were some thoughtful posts on topic. Interspersed by the theists throwing BS and venom. Which I completely expected. Just proves that they are too sensitive to discuss anything rationally.

The biggest relevation for me personally is that unhinged theists will stay unhinged and there isn't much point to engage productively. I mean, even the super patient, diplomatic atheist had no luck with any kind of civil discussion. They just pooped all over her sincere attempts. So going forward if I see some hateful posts come up on recent topics I'll just report to Jeff. It's not worth my time to do much more.

OP: Your assumption that everyone posting here is either "theist" or "atheist" as if these are two "opposing camps" is simplistic. Many of us are much more wishy-washy than that and have feet in both camps, although not necessarily described as "agnostic."

I find it interesting that you deliberately posted a "troll thread," got some strong reactions to it, assume that anything you regard as a nasty post must have been posted by a "theist" (because of your openly-admitted bias against "theists"), and then accuse these imagined "theists" as being "too sensitive."

Then you complain about "hateful posts" and running to the moderator.

So, do I have this correct? The imagined "theists" posting the "venom" are "too sensitive." Yet it's you OP who needs the moderator to create a "safe space" for you.

Do you see any contradiction in what you posted about who's "too sensitive," OP?

OP, you deliberately posted antagonistically expecting to start a throw-down with "theists" (although obviously who can determine who's posting what? You can't assume the "venom" posts are from "theists" just because you have a bias against theists and therefore assign as "theist posts" all the posts that hurt your feelings). You apparently think you got exactly what you wanted--flamed by "theists" (but again who knows if they're "flames" and who knows if they're from "theists"?) Now you want to go running to Mommy because you got a bloody nose.

Don't start "fights" you can't finish, OP. At least if you insist on trolling don't be so gutless about it.