religion, oh god... gods!

The words of the rules were that you could not insult someone based on their religion.

He is basing his insult on the fact that they are religious.

That is all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's a nice thing to do or anything, just that he hasn't technically broken the rules.

Literally, he didn't break the rules

But in the the rules were meant the meaning so he still broke the rules.

Considering one of the rules simply states 'Do not insult or harass other members' he has technically broken the rule since a lot of people can be offended by the statement. When referring to the idea he was insulting them because they were religous then you have a point, but the idea he could of offended someone regardless of the relgous context means that he has technically broken a rule.

When it comes to formal rules, you cannot simply say 'this is what I meant'. You have to be explicit. If someone breaks what you feel is meant in the rules, but not stated, then what you have is a loop-hole.

You can close up the loop-hole so it doesn't happen again by changing the wording of the rules to be more explicit. But you can't punish someone if what they did was not explicitly stated to be against the rules at the time the action occurred.

--EDIT--



I was basing my argument off what was quoted in the topic.

In addition, there is a difference between 'insult' and 'offend'. His comment would have to be directed specifically at a member or members for it to qualify as insulting a member. What he did was insult religious people. The fact that religious members of fakku may be offended by his comment is irrelevant, because it was not directly aimed at them.

It never said anything about it having to be directed at a specific member, granted you could say the opposite is true as well. People can be equally offended or feel insulted by a comment that isn't directed towards them, in that sense and taking into account the idea it never said anything towards it being specifically directed at anyone, I could say I feel 'Insulted' by his statement and then he would have technically broken the rules.

I understand my arguement takes a seat of hypotheticals in order to be relevant but I still feel it stands.

How did it start from religion to arguing about if they broke the rules?

Probably because some atheist(s) tend(s) or seem(s) to believe being "more right" against religious people, or even mere logic ?

I'm a weak atheist. I may as well be agnostic.

Someone used the term 'religious morons', someone said that was breaking the rules, I disagreed. And know we are pointlessly bickering.



An insult has to be directed. You can feel insulted all you like, it doesn't mean he insulted you. Otherwise you could literally break the rules with any statement, as long as someone says 'I feel insulted by this'.



Reword the rules, fine. But you can't punish him for something that wasn't against the rules when he said it. That would be a stupid way to do things.



Back to the actual topic now.

You can be an agnostic atheist you know. So, whilst you don't think there is a god (or gods), you admit that you could very easily be wrong.

I'm an ex-Buddhist with a high school education in Jesuit High School and a sneaky 1year trip to Saudi Arabia (Won't tell how far I went). But after experiencing them first hand, I do feel unattached to any category when it comes to religion now, there is just simply physicality, mentality/intellect, and spirituality for me now. (Huge identity confusion for me)

I've been a Christian my whole life, although I can't say that I'm entirely sure that that's the best description of me. I personally feel like there are lots of things about the religion that I disagree with. Maybe I'm more of an agnostic at heart, but I don't disbelieve in the existence of (an) ethereal being(s) existence. I just hate it when people try to force religion upon others. "I'm right, you're wrong. You're going to hell!" Well, if there IS an ethereal being (or multiple) then I'm pretty sure that they'd understand people holding different beliefs considering the fact that we have no current PROOF of any sort of ethereal existence; just theories and texts from the past which might just be fictional.

I get the impression that most people take this kind of approach. They have a religion/ideology that they subscribe to, but they still disagree with some aspects of said faith. Which is a good and healthy thing to do, it shows you are not merely blindly following, but do think about what it is that you believe.



So you would be an agnostic theist, then. Someone who thinks there is a god, but admits that it is just as plausible for there not to be.



You're argument stands if we assume god is benevolent. But there are parts in many religious texts which describe the/a deity as being 'jealous'. Were this the case, then forcing your religion on someone else would be entirely justifiable. But then you have to ask, if god was really that jealous, why not just do loads of miracles to increase faith, rather than leaving it to inferior mortals like us?

It's pretty common to just go with whatever your family is, but I definitely disagree with parts of religion. I'd have to say that I feel like God, or whatever ethereal being, should be accepting of humanity based off of how most people describe them. While living, how could people KNOW of the existence of a god if there are no patterns or occurrences that would make it definitive of whether or not they exist? There are too many conflicting opinions for there to be a definitive answer in my eyes. If I truly disagree with somebody and am absolutely against it, I'd probably just try to avoid them since there's no hope changing them usually.


Yeah, I'd probably fall in that category. I'm pretty accepting of people and letting people follow what they want to as long as it doesn't negatively impact others. I just wish that people could be happy, honestly.

[color=#993300]My religion is one of the classical Asian religions: Hybridized Neo-Shinto-Confucianism. Belief in a greater god assisted by smaller gods, strong emphasis on family and comeuppance.

I dont understand your point of "forcing religion on other people is justified if god is jealous".

That doesnt make any sense.

So the argument would be "Our God is a jealous God, so if you don't believe in him, you will go to hell, so in forcing our religion on you, we are saving your soul".

That sort of thing.

I can testify for that, there's one branch of an Islamic religion (Not trying to offend any Muslim here, but you guys could probably testify for that too) that is dead set on Allah being the one true God and it's their job to educate people of his existence. I found, upon interaction, that they're milder in their diplomacy since they are not as aggressive as the extremists as to kill an infidel. For me, verbally forcing a religion onto a person can be justifiable as long as it doesn't cross the fine line called Freedom-of-Will. Too often do we see situations where people manipulate and threaten others to force their religion upon them, but if the conversation remains logical and follows the guidelines of an academic debate, then it can be intellectually and spiritually beneficial.

That agrument is 100% tied to the belief that such a being exist, and as of right now, not a single human being on planet earth can prove that such a being exists.




I dont know what you mean by that, seems like there are few missing words in your writings (not sure, but i cant personally make any sense out of that).

On the point of "as long as it doesnt cross the fine line called Freedom of Will", how do you determine when the line is crossed? A human being can act out of his freedom of will EVEN THOUGH his mind is manipulated, even though he is not forced through physical pain or mental pain.



PS: I personally DO NOT think that human beings have freedom of will or freedom of choise, but that is not part of the 'god' debate.

There, corrected it.

Well, I did define it to be only "verbal, logical, and follows the guidelines of an academic argument". The free will part, although does not directly determine the outcome of this debate, does set the grounds for the logic used in this debate, but thank you for defining yourself, that makes it easier for us to be on a common ground. Now, I would assume my answer above has quite satisfy you, or do you need me to articulate?