Taking someone to task...

Is it in any way wrong for taking someone to task for making ignorant or bigoted statements?

I only ask because I seem to have inadvertantly gotten myself caught up in a flame war with a guy who claims that a question of his was appropriate, and that he simply wanted a simple answer. Yet his question was openly perjorative. Is it wrong to take someone to task for ignorant statements they may make? If I ever say something that is even remotely offensive to anyone, I expect to be brought to task for it, and seeing as people here are accustomed to flaming, what do you all feel on the issue?

I say OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

If you need to ask this question, you need some assertiveness training.



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Stoidela

******Thesaurus: An ancient reptile with an excellent vocabulary******

I think if it's a first time thing, you should ask the OP to clarify their intent. If they insist that they are purely curious, I think it's best to take them at their word and perhaps point out to them that they word their question in a less confrontational way. One or two repetitions of this sort of question, and then you should feel free to call a troll a troll.

The only time I've ever called out a troll, is after a 4-6 OP barrage of anti-American retorical questions. There was also a time that I misinterpreted a legit question as a vegan psedo-scientific troll. It's best to give people the benifit of the doubt until they have thoroughly revealed their true colors.

OK, just so you guys can check this out directly, check out the thread under general questions. The title is "Are there *really* lightning rods on the Vatican?" Now, from the outset the guy asking the question is obviously doing it to give him amunition for his anti-religion attitude. When I take him to task for assuming that having lightning rods in the central building of the catholic church is NOT ironic, he clearly states that he feels that religions are inherently against science and rationality, and so I take him to task on that.

I certainly don't need any assertivness training (check out my posts under the Homosexuality thread or under the capital punishment thread here) but what I am wondering is did I, in the context of the community on this board, overstep my bounds in taking this guy to task and exposing him for the fool he is. I may have resorted to ad hominem attacks, but only after he refered to me as a "goatfucker," certainly an invitation for me to open fire.

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

Well I'm about to get medieval on you for using the phrase "take him to task" no less than four times. What the hell does that pharse mean? I recommend using the appropriatly inflamitory description of your actions that are warranted in the pit!

As for the quasi-troll, he's definately a few cards short, but I'm not quite certain if he's a troll just yet.

Make that 5 times!!!! I forgot the subject line. :0

In my not-so-humble opinion, our newest pseudo-troll is a sincerely ignorant child. I place him at about sophomore level in his local Community College, hoping to show his intellectual "superiority" by being disparaging towards poor ignorant religious people. He has no idea what he is in for.

Maybe we should steer him into a thread with ARG, that would certainly confirm all his stereotypes...

Geez, Omnicient, I don't know what you'd do, but if someone called me a goatfucker, I'd not only take him to task, I'd open up a whole can of whup-ass on him.

Well I'm about to get medieval on you for using the phrase "take him to task" no less than four
times. What the hell does that pharse mean

How about nailing his ass to the wall. How about sticking my dick in his ass and making him like it. How about slapping him around like the bitch that he is.

BTW, I did all of this and more. I was just wondering if it was a bit much...

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

Now as one of the more argumentative and generally hostile posters to this board, maybe I shouldn't express an opinion, but I don't think you did anything truly out of line. I suspect that I would have ended my first post before the "BTW, stop trolling." statement, simply on the grounds of not inciting to riot, but that is personal preference.

Have you been out of line in your responses? Not that I can see. On the other hand, people respond to how they perceive they've been treated. If you give them an excuse to feel abused, they will feel abused. Tain't no big deal.

If you and Kalt go on for two more days with this exchange, please remember that it will require your participation to continue. I have no opinion as to whether that is good or bad. I notice, in general, that the people who are engaged in flame wars choose to engage in flame wars. If you enjoy it, flame away (although you and Kalt may be asked to bring it over here to the Pit if it continues much longer).

(BTW, have you considered that perhaps Kalt associated you with caprine fornication because of your sig?)

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Tom~

jayron, you didnot "inadvertanly" get into a flame war, you walked in with a can of kerosene and a lit match. Kalt ask a question, admittily with an anti-religion bias, but the real flaming IMHO was started and egged on by you. If you noticed the rather civil response by Kalt when his question was finnaly answered. As I see it Kalt's flames were in direct response to yours. And if you look back over that thread you will notice that the personal attacks were begun by you, not Kalt. In fact it took a couple of those before Kalt started responding. As much as you protest that you are a "non-christian", It does seem odd that you took apparent personal offense to Kalt's questions. Personnally I think you both are NUTS and I think that both of you are responsible for the multiple flames happening in that thread.

wduty

Oops, sorry, Kalt never did reply to the final answer to his question, did he?

My bad, I'm up about 2 hours past when I really should have gone to bed.

wduty

Jayron:

Read it all. You came off like someone looking for trouble.

Final Tally from this judge:

Blame - 80% jayron, 20% kalt

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I used to worry about Newt. Then I started worrying about the fact that the sun stopped producing neutrinos in the early '80s, indicating that its internal fusion process had stopped. But that was too scary, so now I worry about fashion.

Jayron

Sorry but, in my opinion, wduty and Stoidela are right on. Your 1st response, when you accused him of trolling, set a tone that only got worse. It also did not help that the rest of your response was so adamant and "fact filled", on a subject that no one can actually prove or agree on. Personally, it seems that, pretty immediately, most all
of the people on board became more interested in arguing religion; and very early on should have moved to the pit. I often take offense at sarcasm and on a bad day, tend to respond with same. I'm almost always sorry later on.
BTW..Kalt's goatf----" comment was, while out of line, clearly a response to your sig.line and only came after alot of abuse from you and, what SEEMED like, a whole bunch of your buddies.
I don't know how old any of you are, but to say youth=ignorance (I know those aren't your words..it's the message I got) is, pardon me, a pretty scary statement. I'm 50 and learned a long time ago that age has nothing to do with how informed or astute you are.
"do some research!"?..Come on, we could all do that, but then we wouldn't have much to chat about, would we?

wduty...Actually, Kalt does thank the person that answered him, and asked where she found it.

Can't think of a better way to sign than Stoidela's...so, ditto.

Lew

Kalt's question may have been slightly loaded from the get-go, but from his early postings I don't think he was out looking for trouble. At least not the trouble that a lot of you gave him. Maybe it was the wrong place for the question, but you all came down on him really hard and really fast. The whole thread is ugly and should be forgotten.

Thanks for all of the responses guys. I have been feeling quite guilty about this for some time. I guess I did over step my bounds a bit. Seriously though, he did not ask an innocent question. Perhaps I should have backed down, but I felt I was justified in challenging him for what was an obviously ill-informed opinion. His question said that he thought that religions would find it heretical to think that natural processes such as lightning could effect their places of worship. I was merely trying to dispossess him of this rather ignorant position. I feel fairly justifed based on the caliber of many of his responses. Perhaps the trolling comment on my part was a bit too much, but his initial question was worded in such as way that it seemed to me his only purpose in posting was to pick a fight.

BTW, I myself am 100% non-religious, but I still feel that it is not my position to insult the billions of people who DO practice a religion of some sort. Maybe, however, it should not be my position to confront the sort of ignorance and bigotry that Kalt was displaying. I get very emotional when I see this sort of bigotry. It's one thing to debate religion in an intelligent manner, but another entirely to spout half-truths and prejudices in order to attack peoples belief systems.

Ultimately, I can see that I may have carried things too far in trying to make him be a little more tolerant of others.

Oh, and I never made any comment regarding his age. If he were 50, his initial post would have still been as bigoted and mis-informed as if he were 20.

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

Hmmm... ever thought that maybe you are bigoted against bigots?

This could get tricky...

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I used to worry about Newt. Then I started worrying about the fact that the sun stopped producing neutrinos in the early '80s, indicating that its internal fusion process had stopped. But that was too scary, so now I worry about fashion.

It would be more acurate to say that I don't like it when people spew hate and misinformation about otherwise innocent people.

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Jason R Remy

"Open mindedness is not the same thing as empty mindedness."
-- John Dewey Democracy and Education (1916)

Since when is the Catholic Church INNOCENT?



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I used to worry about Newt. Then I started worrying about the fact that the sun stopped producing neutrinos in the early '80s, indicating that its internal fusion process had stopped. But that was too scary, so now I worry about fashion.

Since when is the Catholic Church INNOCENT?

Since the vast majority of the 250 million catholics in the world have done nothing more to deserve this guy's wrath than to worship God in the manner they see fit. Again, one cannot confuse the modern church with an historical institution, nor can one insult an entire body of religious belief for the misguided actions of a tiny number of its practitioners.

I am no more a supporter of religion than you, or even possibly Kalt. But I do refuse to insult or belittle those that ARE.

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Jason R Remy

"Open mindedness is not the same thing as empty mindedness."
-- John Dewey Democracy and Education (1916)

I am a believer in the Catholic Church and in God. I don't believe that all the actions the church has made throughout history are correct. But on the whole I don't feel that it is any worse than any other group of people. I do appreciate the fact that you defended the church and religion in general, but I must agree that you went slightly overboard. Onthe other hand this is the BBQ pit and with the statments Kalt was making he more than deserved what you were giving him. If he didn't want responses like that he shouldn't have posted in the Pit.

jayron 32, I generally agree with your opinions and pretty much agree here. But I must take YOU to task for your choice of words in your post on 7-26-99, 10:54PM. I am not offended by foul language. I AM offended by the use of sexual violence imagery to express disagreement. You can do better. Go soak your head.

Yeah, go rape a Hitler or something.

[Moonshine]

Thank you Jayron, defender of the faith, protector of downtrodden people everywhere. Personally I saw some humour in Kalt's post, and even if the question was a little daft it certainly wasn't offensive. However you jumped down his throat pretty quickly for somebody so unreligious and things got pretty ugly after that. We have enough zealots on the board who can defend the religion they believe in pretty articulately, as well as a whole mess of more quietly religious folks, why were you getting so het up about something that you aren't interested in anyway? Sheesh.

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It only hurts when I laugh.