(September 18, 2023 at 8:22 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(September 18, 2023 at 7:04 pm)Data Wrote: And he doesn't exist, right?

Of course he doesn’t. What a stupid question.

Boru

Opinion. Can't prove it.

(September 18, 2023 at 9:55 pm)Data Wrote:

(September 18, 2023 at 9:50 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Look carefully a the on the roof.

I can't see it well enough, is it Martin Sheen? Charlie? It looks like Robert F. Kennedy, but I know it's not. I could do an image search on TinEye, but I figured it would be easier for you to just tell me. I didn't watch the movie, my sister loved it. I tried. Not my thing.

It's Martin Sheen. I didn't sit through the movie the first time I went to see it, at a friend's strong urging. His mistake.

(September 18, 2023 at 8:06 pm)Ahriman Wrote:

(September 18, 2023 at 7:25 pm)Data Wrote: Ahhh, that was stupid of me to assume that. I apologize. 

Do you mind my asking who your God is?

Yahweh/Lucifer

Did you see my post earlier on Lucifer? I think it was here. Might have been on another forum I visited briefly before coming here. 

Latin, Hebrew, Greek, English science i.e. Luciferase, luciferin? Lightning bugs etc. Means light bearer, shining one, daystar, morning star. 

It's not Satan, it's Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon.

(September 18, 2023 at 7:58 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I'm a member of three atheist forums currently.  None of them ban you for being a theist.

They don't come out and say they ban you for being a theist. They are far more inclined to ban theists on trumped (no pun intended) up charges. Usually theists are Republicans and Atheists are Democrats. They ban Republicans more, but they don't say that and people who are Atheists or Democrats don't admit this though they know it's true. If you are an ass kissing theist who doesn't get involved in heated debates you're fine. Everyone knows this. It isn't controversial it just isn't acknowledged or admitted. 

A theist on an atheist form has the choice to keep it to themselves or risk harsh criticism and banning. Is it fair? No, but it's something you can expect. 

I tried to find a video but couldn't. In that video Konstantin Kisin tells the story of his grandmother who survived a Russian gulag. After the war the prisoners were released but were forcibly isolated in villages somewhere near Siberia. They lived there with the few natives as well as the guards and whatever that had imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, killed, robbed and oppressed them. When Stalin was posthumously exposed for directing all of this there was a massive wave of suicides among the guards because they had thought they were doing the right thing. 

That's the best I can tell that off the top of my head. Here's a similar video I did find. 

(September 18, 2023 at 9:28 pm)Data Wrote:

(September 18, 2023 at 7:43 pm)SuperSentient Wrote: I take issue with echo chambers and lack of critical thinking that can come from this, but at the same time, it's not really all a free speech issue. Many communities require strict moderation to continue existing as they do or they just get overrun by dissenters. If a feminist space tolerates angry men coming on to debate and as a result, women just leave because they don't want to deal with it, then the quality of your unique community is degraded. 

That sounds reasonable, but at the same time if a feminist debate space is intolerant of dissenters it's only real purpose is to promote intolerance. As clear as some controversial subjects are I think there should always be debate. When I go to a forum I check out their rules, and they're pretty much universal, and I make a conscious decision to respect those rules. I may slip up, I may bend the rules slightly if that is the norm or I may decide not to only when I see blatant hypocrisy and bias in enforcement.

There's a difference of course between a "debate space" and a dedicated space for like-minded people. Some will desire to have a safe space to talk about their beliefs and experiences without constant barrage of criticism, debate, and mockery that often comes with debate. Also, like-minded communities can be helpful in elevating the quality of engagement in debate by collectively bouncing arguments, research, and ideas off each other. They aren't necessarily in contrast to promoting freethinking and rational discourse.

(September 18, 2023 at 10:52 pm)Data Wrote:

(September 18, 2023 at 7:58 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I'm a member of three atheist forums currently.  None of them ban you for being a theist.

They don't come out and say they ban you for being a theist. They are far more inclined to ban theists on trumped (no pun intended) up charges. Usually theists are Republicans and Atheists are Democrats. They ban Republicans more, but they don't say that and people who are Atheists or Democrats don't admit this though they know it's true. If you are an ass kissing theist who doesn't get involved in heated debates you're fine. Everyone knows this. It isn't controversial it just isn't acknowledged or admitted. 

A theist on an atheist form has the choice to keep it to themselves or risk harsh criticism and banning. Is it fair? No, but it's something you can expect. 

---

I tried to find a video but couldn't. In that video Konstantin Kisin tells the story of his grandmother who survived a Russian gulag. After the war the prisoners were released but were forcibly isolated in villages somewhere near Siberia. They lived there with the few natives as well as the guards and whatever that had imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, killed, robbed and oppressed them. When Stalin was posthumously exposed for directing all of this there was a massive wave of suicides among the guards because they had thought they were doing the right thing. 

That's the best I can tell that off the top of my head. Here's a similar video I did find. 

---

clipped

Let me see if I have this straight after you have repeated your mantra about 800 times - if you get banned from here it will be because you claim to be a theist.  Is that about right?

We all deserve to be banned, from life.

(September 18, 2023 at 11:12 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: Let me see if I have this straight after you have repeated your mantra about 800 times - if you get banned from here it will be because you claim to be a theist.  Is that about right?

Not necessarily. If I get banned from here it will probably be because I'm an asshole. Do you honestly think my being an asshole wouldn't be so much a cause of my being banned if I were atheist? Being an asshole is subjective. Ultimately some reason will be given why, as an asshole I'm, hypothetically, being banned. The same as if I'm, hypothetically, being banned for being a theist. I'm being banned, hypothetically for breaking the rules. Then I deserve to be banned. I'm not completely stupid. I'm not complaining. It is what it is. I wouldn't do things that way, but this isn't my forum.

Have you tried not being an asshole?

As someone who’s been here since 2010, I can say that even getting banned for being an asshole would require a high bar. Either something extremely out of line (like, say, acting like Bill Cosby’s pattern of raping women was somehow justifiable or calling for genocide) or a long-standing habit of derailing conversations (like, for instance, derailing threads about LGBT issues for years out of some misguided motion that, if another group has it worse, then issues with other groups aren’t worth talking about.)