Forums antagonistic towards Christians and conservatives

[ktp]

I have been a member of a secular parenting forum for several years, and in fact, am even a moderator there. I have long thought it’s extremely liberally biased, whose liberal members can be quite aggressive both in stating their beliefs and in crying ‘I’m offended’ and even making personal attacks on those who disagree with them.

Despite our terms of service very clearly prohibiting personally directed comments and personal attacks, it happens quite frequently, and most especially it’s coming from a couple of the other moderators.

I have once in the past finally pt’d the administration, I’ve been so taken aback at how blatantly one of our members was being attacked, and the result was that if the admins don’t agree with someone (or so it seems to me) others can treat that person any way they please.

I frequently ask myself why I stay. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m just ‘comfortable’ there, having been there a long time. Sometimes it’s because I think maybe I can actually state the Catholic and conservative positions courteously and persuasively when such discussions arise (which I’ve had some success doing) or maybe have some success in making people see the points clearly enough that maybe they’d at least be tolerant and respectful (which I’m having little or no success doing). Sometimes, it’s only because I have friends there, with whom I have on-going large-group pt’s going. Sometimes it’s because I dislike, on principal, the feeling that people like me are being driven from public boards and only ‘allowed’ to voice our opinions on specifically Christian, Catholic, or conservative boards.

A recent discussion has turned very ugly with very direct, nasty comments being made, by moderators no less, to a member, all stemming from saying she likes a certain Christian bumper sticker! I know from past experience what will happen if I write the admins and say something.

Who else has been in this situation? What have you done? Are there secular boards that AREN’T so intolerant of religious beliefs? I don’t like leaving because some people behave so badly. I don’t like staying knowing that no matter how polite I am, I have less ‘right’ than others to state my view.

 

[Cygnus_X1]

That’s one reason why I’m here. The dominant anti-Catholic groupthink on the Off Topic section of a board I used to belong to precluded anything resembling serious discussion of issues. And the perpetrators? Didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, even as they bashed Catholics and the Pope because they could. And just TRY to express any critique of/opposition to the homosexual agenda and see what happens. Sheesh.

The leaning of these forums is of course to the conservative side, but I’d never want to tell those who don’t see things that way – and aren’t just being trolls – to go away.

 

[the_phoenix]

If you’d like to see some intriguing responses, or some revealing silences, try going on a Tolkien / Middle Earth / Lord of the Rings forum and post the following quote by JRR Tolkien:

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. – J.R.R. Tolkien

People will attempt to rebut you by quoting Tolkien’s stance on allegory out of context. If you provide the full quote regarding allegory in context, you’ll find yourself beating your head against a brick wall with the people who were all too happy to quote Tolkien when they thought it would promote their anti-religious position.

~~ the phoenix

 

[Cat]

If you’re interested, I’ve been a member of a synchronized skating board for five years. www.synchroboards.com

Even though the majority of the members on that Board are teenagers, it is delightfully tolerant of different religions and political viewpoints.

We had a wonderful discussion of religion last year after I posted the “Catholic Quiz.” Everything stayed civil and interesting.

So yes, it’s possible for secular boards to be more civil. Perhaps the synchronized skating board is so civil because that is the nature of the sport–16 skaters skating as one.

 

[jman507]

You never know who’s lurking. If you come up with a polite and reasonable post, you probably will have some who agree, but don’t want to get flamed. You might even change the thoughts of a flamer if your post causes them to step back, and reassess what they think.

 

[Eschato]

If you’d like to see some intriguing responses, or some revealing silences, try going on a Tolkien / Middle Earth / Lord of the Rings forum and post the following quote by JRR Tolkien:

People will attempt to rebut you by quoting Tolkien’s stance on allegory out of context. If you provide the full quote regarding allegory in context, you’ll find yourself beating your head against a brick wall with the people who were all too happy to quote Tolkien when they thought it would promote their anti-religious position.

~~ the phoenix

That’s cool, man. Thank you. I always wondered why I saw that so clearly as an eternal battle of good and evil. Yet it was more specific, and to a point, it was obvious to me that it was about the inner workings of a spiritual battle that is familiar to us all.

Sorry to get of subject… I used to be a member of the “left behind” board. I was there for about a month. The first three weeks that I was there, I was explaining scripture the “Catholic” way without telling them that it was “Catholic.” They almost always agreed with the Church and they never argued with me… until… they found out that I was taking RCIA classes so that I could become a Catholic. They saw it as an attempt to subvert them. Which it was, but only in a small way. Anyway, my point is that most boards that you go to are extremely biased toward the administrators own agenda. For instance, go hang out at a pothead forum, and there is never any mention of anything negative associated with marijuana. Negative statements towards ones own belief not tolerated on most boards.

Of course this board is a little biased, but I like it OK. Everyone is very nice and respectful, and I believe that most (most, because I still get into little scuffles with mods over content) any topic will be heard and respectfully replied to. If a moderator bans your topic, they will always explain why, too. You won’t find that everywhere.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Who else has been in this situation? What have you done?

I was suspended from a board because I questioned the decision of a moderator. The board was allowing posters to post false and damaging information about Catholicism to the point where I felt the laws on hate and harrassment and actually five other laws were being violated. This in a country where religious intolerance were reaching dangerous levels.

The moderator pm’d me giving me a good telling off. I emailed management, described the situation, gave quotes, and gave links to the legislation, saying that I wanted my suspension to be lifted, the offenders to be suspended, and the rules clarified to reflect the legislation. I gave them a deadline before I would go to members of parliament. (This was a publicly funded board.)

My suspension was lifted. The offenders were not suspended. Management posted a thread explaining that some posts were more ‘robust’ than others – presumably anti-Catholics – and that that robustness was hurting the feelings of the more sensitive posters among us – presumably Catholics.



Well well well – if not less than a year later the rules were changed to reflect the legislation. Has that stopped the offensive posts? No. But now you can visit the boards and see whole pages where the mods have deleted the offensive bits outright. Many threads are really hard to read because there are so many deletes. It’s kind of sad really.

I had lots of friends on that board. Some of them set up their own board which in turn was rather haughty imho toward Catholicism. It took a while to adjust to leaving them and it hurt, but I found CA and I hope I can stay here. I have lots of friends here now. And I am learning way more here than I could ever learn at those other two boards. Way more.

 

[Jaypeeto3]

Someone on these forums once suspended me because I described a certain political party as a party of evildoers in no uncertain terms. But that’s ancient history.

Seriously, the most vicious anti Catholic and anti Christian
forums I have ever been on, was the ex-Jehovah’s Witness forum called “H2O” (now defunct). Nearly all the ex-JWs were ferocious atheists who thought they knew all there is to know about religion and science ( an arrogant holdover from their know-it-all JW days).
I have never seen such ferocious antiChristian behavior anywhere as I saw on that ex-Jehovah’s Witness forum. It blew me away.