A fireside chat with the mods of r/Christianity...

IRBMe · 1 year

It seems that outsider is the worst offender. I've seen him frequently adorn himself with his mod badge and threaten people before then deleting all of the comments, including his own threats.

If you look at his user page and click on any posts with the green M next to them, you'll find many of them lead to deleted comments. Now why is this? Does he have something to hide? Why threaten somebody with a moderator badge then delete the comment?

If you're going to warn somebody, threaten them, ban them, scold them or anything else, at the very least, don't delete the comment with the warning, threat or ban in it! Here is an example, and a particularly bad one. That was just pure censorship.

What's worse is that I've seen some other users starting to copy him. I've been accused twice recently of "Pushing an anti-Christian agenda" simply for disagreeing with something. It's getting tiresome. It's becoming difficult to engage in any kind of discussion at all, and let's face it, outsider is just as guilty of many of the things he scolds other people for. I've seen him be condescending, rude, insulting and snarky plenty of times. That's not to mention his complete failure to understand basic logic and reasoning, his inability to comprehend a simple argument, his stubbornness to step back and reevaluate his understanding of something or his repeated uses of strawman arguments, special pleading, trotting out logical fallacies where it is not applicable etc. That is not the kind of example a moderator should be setting.

moonflower · 1 year

For those who are unaware, the policy of this subreddit states:

Non-Christians: You are more than welcome here, and we appreciate the opportunity to have your point of view represented in our discussions

And yet, if non-Christians do share their views, no matter how politely, they risk being threatened with being banned and having their posts deleted from view ... most of this activity is being carried out by outsider, but I have talked with smacfarl and he supports it, and says the other mods are aware of it

here is a link to my conversation with smacfarl

here is a link to one of my many conversations with outsider on this subject

here is a screenshot of the latest posts which were deleted by outsider, as posted by replicasex ... I do not think there was any good reason to remove those posts, and it shows a lack of compassion when outsider cannot understand why anyone would take issue with those who declare that being gay is a sin

cookiexcmonster · 1 year

I would like to hear outsider's justification of his actions before I weigh in :p

aletheia · 1 year

I had a conversation with someone the other day about a certain mod's activity. I think a lot of the complaints about moderator power would be helped if the mods reacted to community response to a comment (the report button/PMs) rather than actively policing comments for hints of an 'anti-Christian agenda'.

jk3us · 1 year

I don't know exactly how the mods handle things... but I've had these "rules" of banning in my mind for a bit now, just thought I'd put it out there:

Banning/deleting can only begin with a non-mod reporting a post or comment.
At least two mods must "sign off" on the action.
Any action taken should be documented in a public place, so we can see who signed off and why. This might be a bad idea?

The exception to all of this is spam and very obvious trolling.

Feel free to use, discuss, modify or completely disregard any/all of this :)

Also:

instead of whining to a mod about them, I ignore them.

I would say that this is the correct course of action much of the time. Downvote and ignore :)

walksonground · 1 year

Your mods should probably just relax and realize that the presence of disparate opinions in this subreddit is a good thing. Argument promotes critical thinking skills and will improve your ability to debate.

It does not offend me when a christian proclaims the existence of god. It should not offend you when an atheist denies the existence of gods.

It does not offend me when a christian proclaims Christ as the redeemer of all mankind. It should not offend you when an atheist claims that Christ is a myth.

Also, I don't think you know what hate speech is.

OlMaster · 1 year

As someone not intimately familiar with the board but following this discussion along, I am struggling to see the point made by the non-theists here (not in an accusatory way, in a genuine 'I'm curious' way).

You walk into a bar, sit down for a few beers with your friends, start chatting about a story you read in the paper this morning, and you start talking about the implications of the story, debating the points, etc. As it happens, a group of people who have a disdain for that paper decide to join you in the discussion, pull up a chair, and say that the paper is regularly erroneous in its reporting, citing particular examples, noting that the editor has a previous history of such things, and so forth, the group being generally careful not to personally insult you and your friends but insisting that you are wrong in believing this story, and many others from the paper.

Occasionally some of the group will make more disparaging remarks about the subscribers to the paper, and how misguided they are, again not being specific in their insults, but generally giving the impression of believing that anyone who reads the paper is of sub-intellect.

Would you not consider this fairly aggressive behaviour? It's not so much that you have no reason to believe in the paper, perhaps you have a lot of reasons to the contrary, but really you were just wishing to discuss the merits of the story and not get into a lengthy debate about the reputation of its source. Sure, you might want to do that every so often, but when you're sitting down at a pub to a drink with your mates you're hardly in the mood for it, and it's the only decent pub in the area.

That's perhaps a strained analogy, but this is the impression I get from the non-theists on this board, and I don't mean to claim that you're excessively rude, or that the above drama of the moderators is right or wrong, but I can see why this is frustrating for the subreddit's following.

GunnerMcGrath · 1 year

Jesus welcomed fellowship with the people on the fringes of society. If we start creating a culture of exclusion here, what's that say about us?

Imagine that you're a member of a small, 200 member church, and you're participating in a church Bible study with some of your members. Then, in the middle of a great discussion, a large group vastly outnumbering you walks in, listens for 30 seconds, and then they all start shouting at you about how you're wrong and stupid for believing in God. Sure, the church sign outside says "Bible study now! Come on in!" but you didn't mean for this to happen.

This is what used to happen on a daily basis in here. We would like /r/Christianity to be a forum for Christians to interact with each other in a way that is impossible anywhere else on reddit, much like an open Bible study is intended for Christians to meet together and talk. It's not a culture of exclusion to ask non-Christians to be respectful of our discussions (by either participating in a mature manner or, if that is impossible for them, to simply go find something else to do).

I continue to wonder why the atheists so badly want to be heard here. If you wouldn't be comfortable as the sole atheist in a group of Christians discussing their faith, or would find it impossible not to argue with them, why would you do so here? I'm happy to discuss these issues with my friends, but I don't understand the concept of crashing the conversation of strangers with an expressly unwanted dissenting opinion.

gregtmills · 1 year

A modest proposal: let's start a subreddit called: /r/christianswhofoulthepublicsquarewiththeirintoleranceandthuggery

That way, the Christians who foul the public square with their intolerance and thuggery can have their own board, and good Christians can have this board. That'll draw the anti-theists away and this board can exchange recipes and discuss theology in a peaceful and decorous manner.

notjawn · 1 year

I'm all for the peaceful resolution of this ongoing squabble but lets get real here: Atheists come in here and rabble-rouse all the time.

We try to be nice, and keep it to the basics but some won't even accept anything when we say it, even worded properly with absolutely no judgment thrown in.

There's debate and then there is arguing, name calling, and slandering. Think about your response before you engage in conversation, be respectful to your neighbors. Everyone gets in a tizzy and it just perpetuates the juvenile discussion.

Have a nice day god bless :)

octopus_prime · 1 year

r/christianity is an echo chamber, and i say let them have it. we all know that r/atheism is no better. (except for the fact that christian trolls just get brutally downvoted there, and not banned or censored.)

seeing_the_light · 1 year

Personally, I don't have any problem with debate here, and I don't think the rules of the subreddit reflect that there is a problem with healthy discourse. The rules seem to be to undercut trolls from overrunning this subreddit, which makes sense because of the overwhelming number of atheists on this site, and anyone who has spent anytime in r/atheism is well aware that there a LOT of atheists out there who are not interested in debate of any kind at all, but simply rehashing old, tired memes in a constant game of psuedo-gotcha, without any effort put into understanding things from a Christian perspective.

I would welcome more debate here than there is - but I am not a mod, and I would want it to be moderated still so that it can stay constructive.

eclectro · 1 year

Frankly, I don't really want them banned because I believe in free-speech, but I can tell you it's something I've wished would happen.

I believe in free speech too, where it is appropriate. But it's kind of like defending wanting to talk about what Dawkins has to say in church. It interferes with the primary mission of that forum. Some bans may be appropriate if it increases the betterment of the forum in general.

Boxcuttinghero · 1 year

Just to throw my two cents in, I've been harassed on this subreddit before by atheists. They linked a thread of mine to the r/atheism subreddit and my inbox was flooded with hatred. I have since changed my username and rarely post for fear of it happening again.

I really think that the mods are trying to prevent that sort of stuff from happening... just like you wouldn't go to r/lgbt making fun of them, atheists really shouldn't be coming here and making fun of us. I don't think ANYONE has a problem with CIVIL discussion.

I don't know what was precisely said in that thread, since it was deleted, but I don't think any mod has the intentions of deleting or banning people without good reason.

I do find it interesting, though, that you post about not wanting to ban atheists:

The few that raise hell are annoying, but I don't believe banning anyone is the answer

and yet in the same post, you say:

I sometimes hope a mod would see that these people are being completely unloving and unreasonable, but alas, they're never banned.

HSMOM · 1 year

While I will not claim I am fully up to date with what is going on, I have been seeing a lot of threads and posts that should be in /r/DebateAChristian

There is plenty of space in there, I don't understand why they are posting in /r/christianity, instead of posting in Debate...

sldorange91 · 1 year

Atheists come here and say they are here to "learn" and "discuss" when in relaity most come here to make broad generalizations about Christianity and ultimately to promote an anti-christian agenda. There is /r/debateachristian for that. I come here to talk with other Christians, if you would like to learn, then learn! But don't come under the guise of learning when in reality you are trying to belittle our views as well as insult us.

[deleted] · 1 year

The problem with the "just ignore them" thing is that we are radically outnumbered by atheists on this site.

Most of the atheists at r/Christianity are nice people and respectful.

However, there are definitely some trolls and a bury brigade that come over here and downvote informative posts just because they are Christian posts.

I've seriously seen some great posts that get -4 or even hidden simply because some non-posting bury brigade atheists come over here and downvote. This is a problem because we are largely a Christian community. I've definitely grown in a spiritual sense thanks to the knowledge laid down here, and it's a shame that it is often hidden due to the bury brigade

We can't stop the non-contributing ones, but we can identify the ones that blatantly post anti-Christian rhetoric, so we must use the banhammer for these ones.

I'm only speaking of the jerks that don't contribute anything - I'm not talking about the atheists that contribute and challenge in a thoughtful manner. They can post things that contradict Christian teachings all they want as long as it isn't intentionally anti-Christian or insulting in tone

parkermcg · 1 year

As a Christian, I came here and r/atheism is automatically frontpaged. I gave it a chance for a while, but all I saw were jokes and onesided arguements about how gods can't exist. I turned it off frontpage, and searched for a religious subreddit that isn't onesided, and come over to R/christianity and saw what seemed like actual intelligent discussions. After a while I frontpaged atheism again, hoping to find some more intelligent discussions there. Friend convinced me.

As of now, all intelligent religious discussion has dissapeared from reddit. Personally, neither are now on my frontpage, and won't be again.

heidavey · 1 year

There seems to be this idea that /r/christianity is for Christians...

[deleted] · 1 year

What do the mods think of Outsider's recent actions?

What did Outsider do that was so scandalous? I think he's been pretty agreeable.

Do the mods agree with banning people with dissenting opinions?

When has that ever happened?

Do some mods disagree with the actions of other mods?

I'm pretty sure they all keep in touch with each other on this stuff. Bear in mind it was all of us calling for more strict moderation of this subreddit due to overwhelming troll presence.

I am in agreement that we don't want atheist hate-speech around here, but how do we distinguish between what is vitriol and what is actual valid questions?

Shouldn't about 90% of it be redirected to /r/debateachristian anyway?

Do you think that by excluding some people, we're sending the wrong message?

Possibly, but I don't particularly care what /r/atheism thinks of our little corner of reddit.

How come people who repeatedly attack as fundamentalist Christians other Christians and/or Atheists aren't banned (or are they)?

I'm pretty sure they are. Remember THEMorUS? Exactly.

GunnerMcGrath · 1 year

[deleted]

Fozanator · 1 year

I respect this article and I'm impressed by the OP. I haven't seen conversation in a christian forum be so reasonable and peaceful regarding conflict between beliefs (or a lack thereof), ever. Though I still fundamentally (ha) disagree with Christianity, seeing this has improved my respect for christian communities, and I wish that hypocrisy was confronted in all venues like it was here.

choosetango · 1 year

I don't know, I have not been the best redditer on this reddit and I have not been banned yet.

That being said, I am not sure that 'outsiders' is a good term, we are all redditers so we are all on this site together.

I find 'most' of the 'non-outsiders?' on this site to be very open to conversation and debate as long as you are respectful and logical, not trying to just 'change everyone'.

That being said, I do get tired of all the down votes just because I have a different viewpoint, even when on the OP’s post. I get that you don't like what I say, but I assume you are on reddit like everyone else so that you can freely talk about what you want and like to look at things from more than one angle, which I am sure god is ok with.

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