There has been some debate whether people come here to bash Christians or not. Now I myself am not labeling myself as any type of religion. I just want to say that people who are not Christian will most likely come in here to post their own beliefs or debate against Christian views because they have no where else to post them.

Whether they are insulting Christianity or not is disputable but please know that they are mainly here to express their own views; not to insult Christians. So please respect the fact that they too have views different then you. Please don't go rating people thumbs down just because they don't agree with your religion. Also try not to take their views as personal attacks they are just views on a specific label. If I have a Mac and say PC is bad, that does not mean you should take it as a personal attack which I think many are doing.

Currently there is no where else to go to post religious views other then in the Christianity forum so if anyone feels the need to have another religion into a forum please voice your opinions here. David is making a new feature to where people can make their own forums but it will cost a lot of Viz. If enough people want a new forum bad enough I will fund it.

I'm athiest and frankly I just don't care. If people want to bash christians it's fine by me. If the christians wanna defend themselves fine by me, but if there's huge debates about it, it should have it's own forum. If not, It'll be put in not such good places.... and people will be banned for it who want to play here... It seriously does need a forum is basically what I mean.

JigSaw : I understand this and I think Christians here want to have those types of debates with other beliefs. However, there are some threads in this forum that have specific topics that are NOT open for other beliefs to debate or insult. Topics that deals more about theology and or maybe a question from a believer to another believer. These topics are just discussions by Christians for Christians and not for everyone else. I suggest for these discussions, others people should avoid taking things out of topic and insult it when they just want a discuss about a "in-house" issue or debate.

Furthermore, some of us may feel tired of reexplaining some things to non-Christians who have wrong understandings about Christianity, and the fact that many of the insults are backed by wrong understands of God and the Bible that have been explained before, yet the insulter does not even listen to it.

I normally don't give thumbs down to people with different beliefs, but only if someone was not reasonable with the way they express it. I can count the number of times I used the "thumbs down" with one hand.

I think a lot of the problem concerns word choice.

I'm just as guilty as anyone else on this. Quite often we say things as if they are absolute truth. Instead we should say things like: I think, I believe, according to [insert source here] etc. when we talk about religion. There is nothing wrong with quoting a source, like the bible, to explain why you believe something. I think (see that there ) if we all try to state things either as our own opinion or the opinion of what we believe is a worthy source that we can eliminate a lot of problems.

Oh, and 1 last thing. As Christians in general, we don't like being told what we believe by other people. If you want to debate certain doctrine then so be it, but I think making a thread to address a specific issue rather than arguing about it in a thread, like play4fun mentioned, that was made not with the purpose of debate can be frustrating. Hopefully that made sense

I suggest that from now on if you want only christians to voice their opinion in a thread that you should mention it in the subtitle or something. This will probably mean we need to make more rules in here and try to avoid people trying to start a war in threads that are meant for christians only. But then again, its really no fun if there is no debating I mean that is what is fun about this all is anyone with any religion can come in and debate against something

What do you guys think? Should we establish new rules for Christian only threads or do you enjoy others voicing their opinions in the threads?

If people want to debate then like geo said lets try and use the words I think or I believe instead of not using them. Example:

Wrong: God doesn't exist! Your a fool to think that.
Right: I think / I believe God doesn't exist because...

That sounds a lot better and is less generic then saying he doesn't exist. Also I think people who say things should try and back up their claims with why they think that else its just provoking war on words.

I think the Christian only idea is a good one.... but it should be used sparingly. I don't want then next 10 threads that are made to have "Christian only" in the tagline... I agree that debating about religion is good. Even if all that either side gets out of it is a renewed conviction of their personal beliefs. But I think if you can't argue for your position effectively then maybe you need to rethink your position... but that's a totally different thread topic altogether .

I think the Christian only thread type could be a temporary solution until we get a general religion section.

Yeah that is what I am really worried about. People need to use "Christian Only" sparingly because you have to keep in mind a lot of these discussions are popular because non-christians are triggering more discussion in them.

I thought of a solution to it I made a post about it in development forum where people can basically control who is allowed to post in their threads.

JigSaw : Don't worry. Some of us Christians use forums sites like these to talk to non-Christians about Christianity and evangelize. I'm sure they don't want to stick with discussing about "Christian only" topics all the time.

play4fun : Open religious views is actually kinda nice having. I always use to think I was Christian when I was actually Catholic as someone pointed out It gives us the ability to learn from each other cause none of us are always 100% right so it could be for the better. I'm sure both christians and non-christians have learned a thing or two from the opposition during these discussions.

play4fun : Gosh golly and gee wilikers! A person cannot respond how they wish IN AN OPEN FORUM ON A FREE SITE? <.<

I don't see why there should be christian only thread. There is nothing wrong with debate unless someone starts hurling insults. What I think should be done though, is not ban people from forums, but specific threads.

Bobbynibbles : "Gosh golly and gee wilikers! A person cannot respond how they wish IN AN OPEN FORUM ON A FREE SITE? <.<"

ummmm...no....ok, I'm just going to illustrate this once, please read very very very carefully.

Let's say, the thread is about "Doctrines of eschatology" This topic is an inside debate BETWEEN CHRISTIANS about what do they think how the end-times would happen. Not a big argument, just discussion about how to interpret verse concerning the last days. Normally, an atheist would not bother discuss about how to interpret Revelation (I think). Now if an atheist comes in and instead of contributing the hermeneutics of those verse, say "You know what, why would a loving God send someone to hell?" That would be unreasonable and pointless to the topic at hand. (I would love to answer that question, but the thread is there for Christians to discuss about that topic) This forum is good for Christians with different backgrounds to come together and discuss issues, theology, and even prayers. The topics of the difference between Christians and non-Christians are a bonus.

Note, this is when an atheist write "nicely." It would be even more unreasonable if it is written in a rude, insulting way.

So in short, if the the topic is what I call an "in-house debate," we would want to discuss it within the Christian community.

Hoochman : The problem with your statement I think is that alot of religious people take anything and everything that could possibly viewed as negative as a personal insult when really it is only meant as their view against that religion.
Some even go so far as to read negtive comments where none exist at all.

JigSaw says "But then again, its really no fun if there is no debating I mean that is what is fun about this all is anyone with any religion can come in and debate against something"
And that's the thing isn't it, if there are "christian only" threads in most cases I think it will probally be filled with either 10 pages of nothing but agreement or hate against other religions.

play4fun : This is not a christian-only site. Saying that certain threads only exist for christians to discuss is pure religious one-sidedness. (I lost my train of thought there so the reply isn't as sharp and witty as my normal ones,)

In fact, to further bobbys thoughts, this is primarily a gaming site, so that this section exists is a sidenote to the forums real purpose.
So if anything it really shouldnt matter who believes what, everyone should be able to post most anywhere so long as they love games

play4fun says "Furthermore, some of us may feel tired of reexplaining some things to non-Christians who have wrong understandings about Christianity, and the fact that many of the insults are backed by wrong understands of God and the Bible that have been explained before"
Personally I thought that was part of most religions, to explain and dispell "wrong understandings" that others might have, so that these people might understand and possibly even join "your" religion.
If they really really believe these "wrong" things about whatever religion, of course you will have to explain and re-explain how things are, and in fact I should think most should be more then happy to talk about their beliefs if they are indeed proud of them and want others to share them.

Bobbynibbles : But the fact that not every thread is for you. Not every thread in this forum is for me either, and if I don't have anything to say about that topic, I just don't respond to it.

When it says a CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE section, CHRISTIAN/CONSERVATIVES would more likely go into the forum to talk about Christian/conservative stuff. Stuff that Christians would discuss amongst themselves. If you want to talk about Christology, Church History, Systematic theology, central interpretative motif, Christian authors, etc, etc, by all means, join the discussion in those threads. But if you are not interested in discussing about those topics when that type of thread shows up. You don't have to comment in them, or take them off topic.

I don't comment on all the threads in this forum. Here's an obvious example: There is a thread asking whether there are any independent baptists in this board. I'm not independent baptist, but I'm not going to go in there and say, "What do you think about infant baptism?" That would be change the purpose of that particular thread. I definitely would not jump in and comment: I disagree with independent baptists. (not that I do) You just need to use common sense about that.

DarkHyren : When I say "reexplaining," I was talking about explaining it to someone earlier in the thread, but gave the same misunderstanding later on in the thread or in another thread, especially when the person never responded to the explanations that was given. That would either imply that the person has no desire to correct that misunderstanding, or seek the correct understanding of that group.

play4fun : CHRISTIAN/CONSERVATIVES would more likely go into the forum to talk about Christian/conservative stuff. But not exclusively. I rest my case.

yay, you "win" on the internet. We all know what that means.

I'm gonna close this Jigsaw. I don't think it was ever really meant to be used as yet another place to argue with each other.

OK, I have to bump this for the sake of repeating the point:
I have seen multiple people *coughcoughJigSawcoughcough* come in here and post things about Christianity and making assumptions about our beliefs and ignoring critical scriptures and basically skewering the whole discussion with their horrible misunderstandings of our faith. If you are not a professing Christian, but you want to post here, PLEASE read up on our beliefs on the specific subject. These threads are almost always for Christian-to-Christian talk, and skewered understandings mess that up. Thank you.

Enough with this drama I'm simply debating peoples quotes. I'm trashing this because your making this a bigger problem then it needs to be, so I suggest you stop causing drama in here.