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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 24, 2021 11:37:45 GMT
Meh. It turned into a circle-jerk of self-satisfied atheists all trumpeting how logical'n'rational'n'intelligent they all were, while trotting out the same utterly boring cliches, donning the mantle of oppressed victimhood and dogpiling any hapless newbie who happened to stumble upon the board to talk about their religious belief. During my very occasional introspective moments when I ponder on the existence of an afterlife, I always imagine hell to be a bit like this. The board was only kept alive by thick-skinned individuals like Smithy, by the likes of Planet Arlon whose barkingly insane musings attracted the aforementioned logical'n'rational'n'intelligent circle-jerk like flies round a turd, plus the occasional poe who tried to stir the pot. When even they gave up, the board died. So congratulations, circle-jerkers - you have eliminated religion and taken the territory! Enjoy what you have. You have a very delusional, alternative history account of what happened. This forum was always a hotbed of atheist/theist arguments. It started because such arguments/debates got so prominent on the Passion of the Christ board (there was far more argument/debate than there was discussion of the actual film) that they made the RFAS board so there was a dedicated forum for such arguments. When it first started it was pretty evenly split among atheists/theists. Over time there was definitely a shift towards there being more atheists, but it wasn't hugely disproportionate; but when the original IMDb board was shut down it's just a fact that more atheists made it here than theists, and several of those theists (Ada, Blade, etc.) stirred up enough trouble to get themselves banned quickly. It's not the atheists fault that so many theists didn't make the jump to this board, nor that those that did couldn't follow the rules here tokeep from getting banned. Plenty of atheists AND theists have left of their own accord, probably for a variety of reasons. The notion that atheists are any more guilty of cliches, or playing the victim, or anything else you accuse them of is laughable. It's funny you mentioning the board being kept alive by "thick-skinned individuals," but by-and-large those WERE the atheists. Theists are, in general, much, much, much more sensitive to having their beliefs questioned and challenged. Atheists stick around because most of them aren't offended when our positions are challenged. There are tons of forums online solely for believers to discuss their faith: this was never one of them. I take no pleasure in the fact that most of the theists have left. It's largely why I've migrated to other places online to argue/debate this stuff. Frankly, this place was always more fun because of the batshit-crazy contingent anyway rather than the intellectual heavyweights that could debate the higher-level philosophical stuff.
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Post by tickingmask on Jun 24, 2021 13:14:38 GMT
Theists are, in general, much, much, much more sensitive to having their beliefs questioned and challenged. Not as sensitive as being constantly told how stupid they are; how they don't understand the bible as well as atheists do otherwise they wouldn't believe in the first place; and being bludgeoned repeatedly about how rational'n'smart atheists are compared to them, how polls show that atheists are far more educated than theists are, etc., etc. Who the hell would want to stay on a board like that? There's a reason why all the rational theists buggered off and left only the likes of Ada and Blade at the end. I agree the board used to be an interesting "hotbed of atheist/theist arguments" conducted with a certain degree of mutual respect at one time in the past but it deteriorated into a steaming pile of tribalistic shit *long* before it transferred to this place. You appear to shrug off as "just a fact" that theists didn't bother to come here after the board moved when you ought to be considering the reasons why that might be.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 24, 2021 15:01:48 GMT
Theists are, in general, much, much, much more sensitive to having their beliefs questioned and challenged. Not as sensitive as being constantly told how stupid they are; how they don't understand the bible as well as atheists do otherwise they wouldn't believe in the first place; and being bludgeoned repeatedly about how rational'n'smart atheists are compared to them, how polls show that atheists are far more educated than theists are, etc., etc. Who the hell would want to stay on a board like that? There's a reason why all the rational theists buggered off and left only the likes of Ada and Blade at the end. I agree the board used to be an interesting "hotbed of atheist/theist arguments" conducted with a certain degree of mutual respect at one time in the past but it deteriorated into a steaming pile of tribalistic shit *long* before it transferred to this place. You appear to shrug off as "just a fact" that theists didn't bother to come here after the board moved when you ought to be considering the reasons why that might be. Your whole "Not as sensitive" sentence doesn't make much sense as written, and back in the old days the theists gave as good as they got. Like I said, this forum was always about argument, and it's not exactly uncommon for people in arguments to turn into insulting assholes. That happened on both sides, and isn't something I attribute to someone being a theist or atheist. If it seemed like it moved towards it being one-sided in terms of theists getting insulted that's simply down to the fact that (eventually) there were more atheists on the board. Still, all you're describing is theists being too sensitive to stick around. I'm not sorry if theists are offended by statistics/polls and any other "facts" in general, and I doubt many atheists brought such subjects up out of the blue when they weren't relevant to the topic being discussed. If the rational theists were genuinely rational then they could've countered such things with other facts and arguments, or just accepted the points. I shrug that off as "just a fact" because I don't have access to the psychologies of everyone who left the board in order to know why they left or didn't migrate. The only person I know personally who told me why he wouldn't be migrating was worov, who was an atheist. All you're doing is offering (or suggesting) your own hypothesis with nothing to back it up with because you have no more better access to them than I do. Sure, I'd like to know why a number of individuals left, but until I know I'm not going to assume the answer and then randomly blame a whole group because of what I just made up.
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Post by tickingmask on Jun 24, 2021 15:28:29 GMT
I shrug that off as "just a fact" because I don't have access to the psychologies of everyone who left the board in order to know why they left or didn't migrate. Huh? What do you think the point of this thread is about? Fact: we are all agreed that this board has been turning to shit for quite a while and has now become a complete wasteland. Of course people have different 'hypotheses' about why that happened, and I wouldn't have bothered replying to this thread in the first place if I wasn't going to suggest my own, based on a full and honest recollection of my own experiences of what went on here. You make that sound like a bad thing! I don't know why you are being so defensive and trying to pass off my comments as 'delusional' or 'made up' but I guess you have your reasons.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 25, 2021 7:23:13 GMT
I shrug that off as "just a fact" because I don't have access to the psychologies of everyone who left the board in order to know why they left or didn't migrate. Huh? What do you think the point of this thread is about? Fact: we are all agreed that this board has been turning to shit for quite a while and has now become a complete wasteland. Of course people have different 'hypotheses' about why that happened, and I wouldn't have bothered replying to this thread in the first place if I wasn't going to suggest my own, based on a full and honest recollection of my own experiences of what went on here. You make that sound like a bad thing! I don't know why you are being so defensive and trying to pass off my comments as 'delusional' or 'made up' but I guess you have your reasons. The OP also wrote his post as a statement of fact, and there wasn't exactly an invitation to throw out random hypotheses about why everyone left. I called your "full and honest recollection of your own experiences" delusional and made-up because they're precisely that. You have no idea why people left (not to mention that many didn't leave, they were banned) and all you're doing is making up a reasoning and blaming one "side" for causing it. The same way you ask why I'm getting so offensive about you insulting all the atheists on here I could ask why the theists were so defensive that they had to leave (according to you). Hypocritical, don't you think?
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Post by tickingmask on Jun 25, 2021 8:20:47 GMT
The same way you ask why I'm getting so offensive about you insulting all the atheists on here I could ask why the theists were so defensive that they had to leave (according to you). And I'd have given you exactly the same response as I gave in my response to the OP. Here is a very typical example of the kind of phenomenon I am talking about:
Not much scope for debate there is there, despite what looked to me like a genuine effort to respond to the question in the OP. Who would want to stay on a board like this to be subject to this kind of response, unless they have masochistic tendencies? No wonder most of them left - even the ones who were not quite so "much, much, much more sensitive to having their beliefs questioned and challenged".
And stop being so melodramatic - I am not "insulting all the atheists on here"; just the minority of circle-jerkers who seemed hell-bent on ridding this religion board of people who happened to be religious. If you don't consider yourself to be one of those people then there's no need to take it so personally.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 25, 2021 9:32:55 GMT
The same way you ask why I'm getting so offensive about you insulting all the atheists on here I could ask why the theists were so defensive that they had to leave (according to you). And I'd have given you exactly the same response as I gave in my response to the OP. Here is a very typical example of the kind of phenomenon I am talking about:
Not much scope for debate there is there, despite what looked to me like a genuine effort to respond to the question in the OP. Who would want to stay on a board like this to be subject to this kind of response, unless they have masochistic tendencies? No wonder most of them left - even the ones who were not quite so "much, much, much more sensitive to having their beliefs questioned and challenged".
And stop being so melodramatic - I am not "insulting all the atheists on here"; just the minority of circle-jerkers who seemed hell-bent on ridding this religion board of people who happened to be religious. If you don't consider yourself to be one of those people then there's no need to take it so personally.
I'm not denying that some atheists attack/have attacked theists in the past. What I'm arguing is that, one, many theists have done the exact same thing (especially Ada, Arlon, Blade, and Erjen, etc.), and two is that you really have no way of knowing that's why most of the theists left. I don't think any half-way intelligent person goes on a forum for religious or political debate and expects to be treated with kindness and fairness by everyone involved. There are plenty of assholes out there, and assholes love the anonymity of the internet, which allows them to be their most assholish selves without fear of consequences, and that's probably even more true when it comes to controversial subjects. That isn't an atheist/theist thing, that's a human thing. Plus, plenty of people thrive under that kind of conflict, which is why the Politics board is still so active despite the same thing happening constantly there (meaning many people on both sides insulting people on the other side). Even assuming you just meant the "minority of circle-jerkers" (whomever these anonymous minority happen to be... you aren't saying I guess) there's still no way of knowing that's what caused most of the theists to leave, especially considering a minority is pretty easy to ignore if you have actually have "thick-skin." Keep in mind that many of those worst offenders got banned and/or left too (like Rabbit). EDIT: Also btw, that thread you link was almost certainly started on the Politics board given that most everyone there (including the post you linked to) are Politics board regulars. I don't think any of them have been or were RFAS regulars.
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Post by tickingmask on Jun 25, 2021 17:09:44 GMT
The OP also wrote his post as a statement of fact, and there wasn't exactly an invitation to throw out random hypotheses about why everyone left. I should have mentioned this in my previous response, but when were you planning to respond to all the others who had the temerity to "throw out random hypotheses about why everyone left" without an explicit invitation to do so? We had several on this thread before I stuck my oar in:
1. Because religion is discussed on the Politics board
2. Everyone came to an amicable agreement and decided to calm down
3. Religious people are starting to see the error of their ways and feel too embarrassed to post anymore
4. Because rationality endured over irrationality
Can I also assume that in the cases of 3 and 4 you have noted that these both appear to be "insulting all the theists" and you plan to upbraid the posters who did this as well?
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 26, 2021 12:32:55 GMT
The OP also wrote his post as a statement of fact, and there wasn't exactly an invitation to throw out random hypotheses about why everyone left. I should have mentioned this in my previous response, but when were you planning to respond to all the others who had the temerity to "throw out random hypotheses about why everyone left" without an explicit invitation to do so? We had several on this thread before I stuck my oar in:
1. Because religion is discussed on the Politics board
2. Everyone came to an amicable agreement and decided to calm down
3. Religious people are starting to see the error of their ways and feel too embarrassed to post anymore
4. Because rationality endured over irrationality
Can I also assume that in the cases of 3 and 4 you have noted that these both appear to be "insulting all the theists" and you plan to upbraid the posters who did this as well?
Were others insulting (what seemed like) an entire group based on their wild hypotheses? Please point them out if I missed them. As for your list, both #3 and #4 are obviously jokes. Insulting jokes, but jokes nonetheless. You think people are offering these as serious hypotheses the way you did? There's also a big difference in "insulting all theists" for what you see as a flaw in their general position (I happen to agree that there is no path to theism built on rationality) and insulting an entire group for causing something when you have no evidence that's what caused it. I could literally argue (have literally argued for years) why theism is an irrational position; what argument do you have that it was the atheist "insulting circle-jerks" that caused theists to leave? Your only piece of evidence was one post on a board that wasn't even started on RFAS or contained RFAS regulars!
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Post by goz on Jun 27, 2021 23:59:22 GMT
I posted when this site was first brought up hoping it would be different from the old imdb board. I naively posted what your favorite book of the Bible was (I think) and was enveloped into a onslaught of atheistic rants which caused me to no longer post here. Same folks and tired arguments from the old imdb board. It's like the old senile man on the corner yelling to kids about getting off his lawn. No offense to anyone, but it's a boring board. The problem is, and always has been, one of perspective and expectations of what the RFS Board is all about. There are two distinct groups that are not just theist and atheist but those who expected this Board to be like an extention of a Bible Studies class. I can't tell you the number of times I have been told that due to my atheist views I don't even belong on this board. It is quite peculiar that theists had this mindset that ONLY positive theistic views could be expressed here. Your innocuous thread about the favourite book of the Bible provided a perfect arean for this clash to come to the fore. I guess whatever floats your boat however for me discussion of a book that is over translated, interpreted, manufactured and made up stories by a bunch of old men with outdated views on morality much of which is quite gory and perverted, is little better than watching paint dry. Personally I prefer to discuss the philosophy psychology and politics of religious thought and practice.
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Post by vegalyra on Jun 28, 2021 0:19:55 GMT
I posted when this site was first brought up hoping it would be different from the old imdb board. I naively posted what your favorite book of the Bible was (I think) and was enveloped into a onslaught of atheistic rants which caused me to no longer post here. Same folks and tired arguments from the old imdb board. It's like the old senile man on the corner yelling to kids about getting off his lawn. No offense to anyone, but it's a boring board. The problem is, and always has been, one of perspective and expectations of what the RFS Board is all about. There are two distinct groups that are not just theist and atheist but those who expected this Board to be like an extention of a Bible Studies class. I can't tell you the number of times I have been told that due to my atheist views I don't even belong on this board. It is quite peculiar that theists had this mindset that ONLY positive theistic views could be expressed here. Your innocuous thread about the favourite book of the Bible provided a perfect arean for this clash to come to the fore. I guess whatever floats your boat however for me discussion of a book that is over translated, interpreted, manufactured and made up stories by a bunch of old men with outdated views on morality much of which is quite gory and perverted, is little better than watching paint dry. Personally I prefer to discuss the philosophy psychology and politics of religious thought and practice. Cool.
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