It would be a heck of a lot more interesting. I have learned a lot about various religions (even my own) by reading the SDMB, but only in bits & pieces inbetween a lot of other pointless crap. Points of theology are interesting to me, and although I know the generalities of what the Catholics think about things, it’s interesting to hear other interpretations.
The problems with the hijacks is that they cover the same territory over & over, though the topic of the threads themselves may be wildly different.
If you want a serious answer, Polycarp, mine might be that religious threads intended for replies by theists need to state explicitly disclaimers to that effect: i.e., “I acknowledge that my faith is ultimately subjective, and is indistinguishable from delusion by certain non-believers” or “This thread is posited on the assumption (that you may well not hold) that God exists, or even that the concept of a Judeo-Xian God makes a shred of sense” or most of the other points that you end up conceding anyway in the course of the so-called “hijacks.”
If you correctly anticipate issues in your OP that people who don’t buy into your basic premise are probably going to be bringing up, then you can just refer them back to your OP, but if you’re going to put out OPs with questionable or even ludicrous premises, you have to expect to be told “Your premise is incorrect” every so often.
Of course, it may seem to you that identifying yourself explicitly as someone who hears voices that others can’t hear and as someone whose life is built on what those voices say may be too embarrassing to admit without some prompting, but that will probably keep the discussion more focussed.
Yes, pseudotriton. And in the same vein, if anyone asks “Why couldn’t Frodo just drop the Ring down a storm drain and retire to a little hovel on an island somewhere?” they should be sure to insert lengthy disclaimers just to head off the blowhards who will find it necessary to accentuate their self-importance by pointing out that Frodo never existed and a fictional character only does thus and so because the author so decides.
It’s weird. I remember you from before you were a dick. Where did it all go wrong?
Malacandra, my point is that after a big back-and-forth Poly usually ends up acknowledging most if not all of the stuff I’m mentioning anyway. He’s not especially looking to pick fights, but religious threads often have premises that people don’t accept, so why not be upfront about things you’re willing to acknowledge after a long and tedious series of arguments that we’ve all heard before?
If I start a thread about finding meaning in a soulless, random universe, I would expect some Xian to remind me of God’s love, unless I state explicitly that I don’t want such contributions, they lie outside the sphere of my OP, etc. Otherwise, I have to deal with their points. Fair’s fair.
Or at least include in the thread header: “Theists Only, please!” or “Only Xians need reply–thanks!!” Why presume that your view of the universe is shared by everyone? And then get all pissed off when someone pops up with a differing view? It’s just so arrogant of Xians to presume that their subjective vision of the world is somehow objectively true for everyone. If you don’t want to hear from everyone, or if you’re interested in the views of only members of your tribe, then please just state clearly who it is that you’re deliberately excluding from the discussion. I don’t see what’s so hard about this point.
Its funny - when I first joined we had lots of rather interesting religious debates. Our resident atheists of the time were very respectful (as I recall) of our resident believers. They understood that there was a spectrum of belief from “you know, I feel like something more is out there” to “political evangelicalism - lets keep (make) this great country of ours a Christian nation.” And that the first kind of theist really had more in common with the atheists than they had in common with the second kind of theist. Our resident atheist God was the Invisible Pink Unicorn. We had more resident believers with a wider variety of professed beliefs. Granted, when you’ve had a few discussions on what agnostic really means or Pascal’s Wager, it gets old.
With 9/11 things changed around here - Great Debate threads about religion were more about Islam as a violent religion than about the existance of God. For a while there were almost no religious threads at all. It was politics, war and economics - occationally a creationist would show up for a few days.
I guess what I’m saying is that the nature of this board is like the weather - don’t like today’s topics - give it a while, the winds will blow in with something different. I predict religion (which I like to debate) will soon be replaced by endless threads about what dumbass move which political party/candidate did in the presidential race (which I care less about).
It’s not people that are (or should be) excluded; it’s hijacks - specifically, threadshitting. As someone said in that other thread, if the discussion is posed as: Pizza lovers: what’s your favourite topping?, or even just Does pepperoni belong on an Italian pizza, or is it an American thing?, making several posts on how much you hate pizza, or how anyone who says they like pizza must have something a bit wrong with them is just plain vandalism.
Of course you have a right to hold those views, and I don’t think you’d be afoul of any board rules if you start a thread titled “Pizza: oh how I loathe thee!”.
Edited to add:
…and of course there are plenty of threads in which your dislike for pizza would be an entirely relevant topic, it’s just that wading in and pooh-poohing the whole subject, when the discussion was about some specific detail of it, is just unhelpful and jerkish. Same sort of thing happens in CS occasionally; the discussion will be Should character X in show Y do Z?, and someone will wade in with the totally unhelpful comment “Dudes, it’s fiction!”
But you’d be perfectly free to come into that thread and explain why pizza is delicious, right? And how I’m totally fucked for refusing to acknowledging that all the ingredients–dough, cheese, tomato paste, etc–are wholesome and together they’re fabulous?
Or would you be a thread-shitter and a hijacker and an evil-doer for pointing out your differing pov?