Charter & Rules (Updated 2019-05-01)

Dades

This may be at its heart a forum for those who share atheist or agnostic views, but those of all faiths or beliefs are welcome in any discussion. Also welcome are any questions/comments relating to religion, morality, ethics or the origins of life in general. (Just don't hold out for a definitive answer).

Only a couple of obvious rules need be iterated for the sake of clarity:

1. No personal insults. Attack the post not the poster. If you can't keep your head, take it elsewhere.

2. Respect the right of people to hold religious or irreligious beliefs which are different from yours. Forum moderators reserve the right to take action against posts or posters which they deem to be offensive or intended to inflame.

3. While posting of controversial questions to stimulate debate is acceptable, soap boxing, i.e constant repetition of a single viewpoint while refusing to entertain discussion on it, is both disruptive and annoying, and will not be tolerated. You are expected to contribute something other than placard proclamations.

4. Starting another thread when challenged, instead of responding to debate to your post, is also not be tolerated.

5. No discussion of moderation decisions from other forums (yes, including the Christianity one).

Unlike other forums where proselytizing is banned, I suggest we don't need to do that here. As long as the basic rules are followed I can't see this being an issue - and it does spark debate.

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Hope this suffices for people. Any thoughts feel free to post here, or PM me if you prefer.

Dades

Just FYI...

In case anyone hasn't noticed, or for those who are new here; The Hazards of Belief thread has been stickied.

The web is full of interesting stories of bizarre religion-inspired acts and the hazards involved for the believers - so rather than having a new thread each time posters can use this thread to post stories that might be worth a read.

New "Hazards of Belief" type threads will be moved there, unless there is obvious point worthy of a larger debate.

Danke schön.


EDIT: HUMOUR

The long running "Religious Humour" thread has now been stickied. Any new item of irreverent humour regarding your favourite faith should be posted here, or your new thread will be moved. Repeat offenders (i.e. those who start new threads) may receive an infraction and/or mass card.

EDIT: LEAVING THE CHURCH

Those with questions concerning OFFICIALLY LEAVING THE CHURCH, look at the threads linked in this post before asking a question. New threads asking the same questions will be closed.

EDIT: CHURCH SCANDALS

There is now a sticky for anything related to CHURCH SCANDALS. Post new stories or comments in this thread only. New threads created will be moved here.

EDIT: VIDEO MATERIAL

Since there is so much video material out there and videos aren't always worthy of their own threads, we've created the A&A Related Video Thread. Unless you really think it warrents it's own thread - post any random new videos in this thread or risk making Baby Jesus cry.

EDIT: EVOLUTION SKEPTICS/CREATIONISM/ID

This thread is the new home for all discussion relating to questioning Evolution or suggesting alternative *theories* such as creationism or Intelligent Design. All posts relating to same outside of this thread will likely be moved here. This is the old thread for reference.

Asiaprod

Added rules 3 and 4 to prevent Soap boxing

robindch

Recently, the number of posts which have contained rude or abusive language directed towards other posters has increased. There’s been a similar increase in cheap point-scoring which has tended to derail threads which were otherwise interesting. Finally, there have been a few unhappy instances where posters from The Other Forum have dropped over here, then returned home to write unpleasant notes about their visit, about the forum’s moderators and posters, and the opinions that are expressed here.

While we appreciate that there can be strong passions on all sides of any argument, and particularly with respect to religion (or the lack of it), we would like to remind everybody that the forum charter requires all posters to extend politeness and courtesy towards everybody. And not just those on their own side.

As forum moderators, we do not enjoy editing or deleting inflammatory posts, and carding or banning posters who’ve overstepped the line. Instead, we’d much prefer the conversation to ebb and flow as it would face-to-face without the need to blow whistles.

To summarize:

• If you feel it’s appropriate, you’re allowed to criticise an idea as being dumb, stupid or whatever you like. But you are not allowed to say that the person putting forward that idea is dumb, stupid or whatever.
• Try to avoid posting in one forum about goings-on in the other -- law-abiding posters have a right of reply, so include a cross-forum link if you do want to do this.

In short, go for the ball and not the player, and we can all enjoy the game.

thanks,

Dades, robindch

looksee

In the interests of not causing issues for people using the various site versions, please do not quote long posts in their entirety.

robindch

Following a range of issues in the thread(s) on abortion, plus some vigorous disussion, forum moderators and category moderators have agreed to update the forum charter with the following notes:

• A+A is a discussion forum, so forum moderators will work to keep the discussion flowing as smoothly as possible.
• For posts which forum moderators deem are fully below-standard, moderators will now act in A+A as other moderators do in other forums - namely, to delete sub-standard posts on sight. Forum moderators may post indicating that a post was deleted, may note briefly why a post was deleted, but will not note whose post was deleted. At this time, there is no an appeals process for these deletions beyond a PM to the forum moderators from the poster whose post was deleted.
• If a post contains only some below-standard prose, forum moderators may choose to delete or edit the offending prose only.
• Posters are not allowed to refer to each other, directly or indirectly, as "liars", "trolls", "bigots", "bullies", "soap-boxers" or any other terms which impute antisocial motives to other posters. In the normal run of discussion, posters should avoid disputed terms without agreeing on what precisely the terms might mean, and should definitions be agreed, these terms should be used sparingly and only to bring the discussion forward. An example of such a disputed term is "murder" in the context of abortion.