OT: Something worrying

[Suicide Junkie]

...

[Spoo]

Atrocities said:
Religion is for the weak minded, the gullable, those who follow, cannot think for themselves, the narrow minded, the fanatical, and the insane.

More people have been killed in the name of God than by any other means.

I have lost all respect I had for you, Atrocities. This is a low point for this forum.

[Renegade 13]

Spoo said:
I have lost all respect I had for you, Atrocities. This is a low point for this forum.

I do not mean to offend with this question but...why? Why would AT voicing his opinion cause you to lose respect for him? Sure, you may not agree with his opinion, but it is his opinion. Is he not entitled to hold a differing opinion from that of most other people?

[Fyron]

Its not necessarily the opinion, but the trollish method of posting it... Explicitly calling everyone with religious beliefs weak-minded etc. isn't very amenable to civil discussion.

[Starhawk]

I agree with everyone AT that was trollish and rather nasty of you as I said.

[Fyron]

Though it is generally better to ignore trollish posts than flip out and feed the troll.

[Jack Simth]

Yeah, I think what's driving everyone crazy is that it was a MODERATOR that was behaving in a trollish fashion. When it's a moderator that is being rather directly insulting, where then do moderators get the ... "higher ground" so to speak ... to do little things like edit others' posts, delete offensive posts, and tell others to cool it? Sure, they get the system permisions from the forum administrator, but moderators are supposed to be the ones making sure that such posts are kept to a minimum.

Granted, it was another moderator that told him he was out of line ... and yet, after being rebuked, he hardly apologized or admitted any wrongdoing.

Tell me, who watches the watchers?

[JAFisher44]

I fully support AT's right to have his opinions about religious people. We all have an opinion of religious people, whether that opinion be good or bad. However, when you have an opinion like the one AT expressed you should not voice it in public if you want people to like you. Sometimes it is just best to keep your true opinion to yourself.

The fact of the matter is that AT's comments would have sparked anger in almost any group they were applied to. Religious people responding negatively to that post does not in any way separate them from anyone else. It does not show that they are easily provoked to violence. If you call anyone weak minded, insane, gullible, etc. they will become angry. Some people will not necessarily rise to the bait, but I am sure that there are religious people on this board who also did not rise to the bait.

For example, I could say, "Believing we are in Iraq to fight terrorism is for the weak minded, the gullable, those who follow, cannot think for themselves, the narrow minded, the fanatical, and the insane." This would target a large percentage of the American public, Including you AT, judging by some of your other posts. I am sure that if there were a large enough group of those people here I would get called a troll and have people mad at me. Does this mean that the above group is prone to violence? Well, maybe that is a bad example

Anyway, calling anyone names is going to lead to anger and violence. Just don't do it unless you want everyone to call you a troll and hate you.

[Phoenix-D]

That's why many forums have an informal tradition of mods doing things like

<modhat>
Cool it down or I lock the thread
</modhat>

when talking in their official role.

[Renegade 13]

JAFisher44 said:
If you call anyone weak minded, insane, gullible, etc. they will become angry.

Guess I'm a little strange then. I'd laugh at them! Always works best to laugh at people when they try to make you mad.