Introduction

[sswhateverlove]

As someone who has gone through this personally, I would say that if this is an accepted part of your social culture, you should have some bold-typed warning on the top of the forum that says "if you do not present with an atheist perspective and you do not introduce yourself first, you will be berated and harassed". Honestly, I had no clue and it totally caught me off guard. I'm used to having my opinions valued and to being treated respectfully and I really was very confused.

Seriously, love, we've had our share of PMs...

Why would your opinion be valued by us when we've never even met you or have never known anything about you? When you joined our community, you didn't bother to introduce yourself, and made eight threads strawmanning atheists. That's akin to crashing someone's gathering, walking up to the podium, taking the mic, averring your thoughts, and telling everyone in the room what and how they think, and then getting upset because they are angry about it.

I think you could be a really valuable member of the forum. You just need to drop the idea that anyone is persecuting you. How would you feel if someone just waltzed into your living room and told you how you are?

I'm trying to make your stay here positive...

I'm acknowledging that I was ignorant with regard to the social culture in this particular forum or that i was strawmanning atheists. I didn't come here with the intention to lurk, I came with very specific discussions that I was interested in having. I assumed that if people did not like what I had to say, they would ignore it. Unlike waltzing into your living room and taking over your microphone, I had no idea you were even going to choose to read my thread nevermind that you would take offense to me posting it here. I had no clue of the social dynamics, nor that I was doing anything that you would find insulting.

Honestly, thought process went... Just wrote 3 papers... Want feedback from people who will challenge my perspective and lead me to more information... Where do I go with my discussions?... Atheistforums, ok.... Most of the atheists I know are pretty smart with regard to science... Where should I post each discussion topic?.... Ok, categories... Hmmm... I wonder if anyone will even respond?...

Then woah, woah, woah... why is everyone being so mean? hock:

Again, I apologize for my ignorance, but it may be unrealistic to assume everyone is going to just know how to go about interacting in your community. Forums are new to me in general. I would guess others who come here may be inexperienced as well.