Religious dogmatism in GQ?

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1

Randy Seltzer started this thread in General Question:

(in part)
Do any “historical” events predate Genesis?

Are there any human events we can pinpoint to within a few decades that occurred before c. 3762 BCE? As far as I can tell, Egyptology goes back to about 3100 BCE. Is that the best we can do?

If we haven’t got any events, anyone have any insight into what humankind was doing around that time? (Besides, of course, eating the forbidden fruit.)

2nd Disclaimer: This being GQ, no religion/politics please. My bad parenthetical joke notwithstanding.

(I emphasize the above line.)

Almost immediately the OP thrust was significantly modified by posts that went beyond human historical records, and also beyond anthropological archeology.

[IM not so HO on]

Frankly, what bothers me most is the injection of religious comments, with all the distortions of Lets-Not-Get-god-Angry “thinking”

[Sarcasm on]

that are so cute and adorable.

[/Sarcasm]

I suppose it could be argued that the tone, remarks and references of a “skeptical” nature are “religious” by taking an opposing position.

By the same token though, I think, taking a round earth position in the face of FE, or a heliocentric position in the face of geocentric would also be “religious.”

[/Opinion]

What I am getting at is: WHY is all this holy stuff allowed in GQ?

There really isn’t anything factual except the facts of what some people are saying. Again (strongly held) opinion… And, granted, much of this stating of beliefs, together with historical details has interested me, and others.

Perhaps this has been allowed because the dogmatism has been expressed without the in-your-face stuff that some posters have used. This, by the way, is how believers in Judaism have generally conducted themselves across the web as a whole, from what I have seen.

But still, I would like to understand the policy and why this thread hasn’t been moved to GD.

True Blue Jack

2

From the Forum descriptions:

Great Debates
For long-running discussions of the great questions of our time. This is also the place for religious debates and (if you feel you must) witnessing.

As to why they put them there instead of, say, MPSIMS or the Pit is beyond me

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Here’s a link to the thread. I agree it’s been pretty well hijacked.

4

Beautiful job, Jack, in writing up what’s wrong with that thread (at least IMO).

Let me observe what you did not ask, that a question regarding religion with a factual answer, or an answer that is a factually sound statement of what someone’s beliefs are, is properly placed in GQ. The following two questions would be valid GQ thread topics:

  1. Are there any dated historical events that (are thought to) precede the 3762 BC date claimed in traditional Jewish thought to be the date of creation?

  2. What explanation do groups such as Orthodox Judaism and Fundamentalist Christianity give for events dateable to prior to the date when their beliefs hold that God created the world?

Note that both questions relate to matters of fact regarding matters of belief. (As a quick parallel, it does not matter what your personal views regarding the historicity of the Virgin Mary, the existence of Heaven, etc., may be: it is a factual statement that Catholic doctrine teaches that the Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. Whether the Catholic Church is promulgating Revealed Truth or completely out to lunch is immaterial: it’s a statement regarding what they believe, and as such is falsifiable by the purely mundane method of checking it against an authoritative record of what Catholic beliefs are.

5

He’s talking about GQ, not GD.

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Polycarp has put forth very well what parts of such a question **would ** be acceptable content for GQ; in fact, the OP of that thread we’re talking about tried to frame the answers in the terms of question #1 exclusively.

I suppose it’s inevitable given human nature, that once someone brings up question #2, someone will go into GD territory.
“What is the official teaching?” = GQ
“No kidding, really? And you believe THAT? How come?” = GD

What happened in that thread was that the first derail came with some people answering another thing that was NOT the question, that is, how do we really know what happened at all before there were any records.

Giles then DID ask the question: *Do those who think the world is only a few thousand years old think that God created it with all those photons streaming towards the Earth from where Andromeda would have been if the world existed 2.5 million years ago? * (Maybe thought it was a rhetorical question?)

To which cmkeller gave a straight answer (yes, they do; at least in the Orthodox Jewish tradition), which people then started following up on.

HOWEVER, though this led the thread to the hijack in progress into how does Orthodox Judaism interpret science in light of the presumption of inerrancy of the Torah, with a side dish of astronomical calendrics, I don’t see in it any problem regarding “religious comments”, because, as Jack points out, cmkeller answered the question asked straight and plain, w/o seeking to provoke. Now, those who decided to follow up maybe they should have opened a different thread, bit that’s another story.(Plus in any case, cmkeller is about to have to step away from the forum for a day, so there’ll be a break to the discussion). I would not wish to “sanitize” GQ so that NO religious content can ever enter the discussion, because as Polycarp states, sometimes it’s NOT a debate.

7

It’s pretty much up to the moderators of each forum what to do (or whether to do anything) when a thread goes tangential. Sometimes, the discussion is an interesting one in its own light, and it doesn’t come to the moderators’ attention until there’s already dozens of posts, and they just let it go. Basically, best bet is to report when a thread goes off on a tangent, and thus call it to the mods’ attention. (For those who don’t know, click on the little exclamation point in the red triangle in the upper right corner of each post.) The fact is that we can’t read every post and every thread, so hitting a REPORT will allow the mods to make an earlier decision.

8

:smack:

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Original OP here. I’ve been getting more and more alarmed at the direction that thread has taken.

Indeed, my original intent was a strictly factual thread. And I did get a few answers of the type I was seeking, before it went tangential.

I blame myself for mentioning the bible in the thread title. That was ill-advised, and I was just begging for a trainwreck by doing it. Indeed, all the way up in post #4, KGS suggested that my question was really intended to spark a religious debate (“Why do we require exact dates & written record to prove humans existed before the Bible says we did???” he writes), and in my response, I got snippy instead of trying to guide the thread back on track.

So in short, I apologize for this nonsense, and I wash my hands of that thread. I would suggest it be locked, but a few participants still seem to be enjoying it.

10

That thread is nearly done. It’ll probably drop off in the next day.

It’s always a tough call in GQ, as to whether an OP which is truly asking a GQ question should remain there when many of the answers will involve answers which might be better offered in IMHO and GD. I, personally, thought that most of the respondents did a good job. If anyone wishes to make it a Great Debate, go for it. By that I mean, start a thread in GD.