The Newly Departed thread: announcements (departures)

[Whateverist]

I think this place just isn't her flavor.

It used to be...
During the past year (maybe a bit more), I've noticed this place becoming more hostile towards theists.
Some people tend to be respectful, like whateverist and Tiberius.... Some people are engaging, like khem or jorm...
But some people are just nasty, like kit and tizheruk.

Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinions, as long as they follow the rules... But the vocal nasties make those same theists feel unwelcome. And that is something that didn't seem to happen when Rayaan was admin.
There was more respect, back then.
I've even noticed my own motivation for posting on religious threads dropping, as I don't care to engage when others are just insulting people. Why should I bother to write something, if I expect the religious to feel insulted and just leave, never to read my words?

It's been a sad realization about this place...
But you guys do you.
Those of us who are more interested in the actual exchange of ideas and in understanding each other will, in time, find some other place... Or some niche within this one... Time will tell how things turn out.

We used to say we're the site for people of any faith or no faith to discuss.  (Sorry but I can't find it anywhere now and I realize the wording isn't right).  But in practice we're the site where the majority group are free to be pretty darn rude to theists and what that does is keep the discussion shallow and safe - for us.  Discussions on religious topics get highly repetitive and nearly always involve low lying fruit.  We don't get many (any?) interesting theist ideas expressed because - who would bother to try under these conditions?

The high degree of free speech we enjoy here is fine for having fun but not conducive to depthy discussion.  It just isn't.  For those looking for confirmation that believers are slow witted knuckle draggers, this is definitely the place to be since we drive anyone with any self respect away.  But I wouldn't dream of suggesting to any theist I actually find interesting that they come here.  And there is a good reason we don't try to moderate a better level of civility.  That shit is hard to do and the job would be way too onerous to do for free. 

There are thoughtful people here and definitely sharper knives than me so I can still have a good time and now and then actually learn something new.  But it really does get repetitive so I find myself exploring other sites.  Only the xtian ones seem to take on civility but of course most fail miserably.  

Ah well, the family here is still less disfunctional than the one I started out in, as well as being a hell of a lot more fun.