# The Closure of the "Father Solanus Casey Was A Living Saint Thread"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-closure-of-the-father-solanus-casey-was-a-living-saint-thread/968493>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [July 24, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-closure-of-the-father-solanus-casey-was-a-living-saint-thread/968493 "2022-07-24T23:31:11Z")\
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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2022, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-closure-of-the-father-solanus-casey-was-a-living-saint-thread/968493/52 "2022-07-26T07:31:56Z")

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> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> > [@wolfpup](#):
> >
> > I have yet to see a thread categorized as “witnessing” that served any useful purpose whatsoever.
> 
> Some of Liberal’s “modal ontological proof of God” threads were quite interesting dives into philosophy topics. &nbsp;

I don’t believe I’ve seen those threads, but we’ve had a number of decent threads here about the existence of God that I would consider perfectly reasonable philosophical discussions that don’t fall under what seems to be meant here by “witnessing”. In fact there’s one going on in IMHO right now, **"[What’s the minimum-level miracle it would take you to convince you God exists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-minimum-level-miracle-it-would-take-you-to-convince-you-god-exists/968443)**. Since “witnessing” is supposed to belong in GD, I assume this is not being regarded as such.

OTOH, here’s a good example of what I mean. This thread was started in GD a couple of years ago:

**[Infant genetal [sic] mutilation is a blood sacrifice to the demon Yahwe.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321)**

The OP of that thread is just the kind of incoherent rant that one might expect from such a title.

So what happens?

Within literally 50 minutes, a mod shows up, not to shut it down, but to _ **defend** _ it with this comment:

> Guys, this is the very definition of witnessing. Hence it belongs here in Great Debates.

i.e.- “Stop flagging this OP – it’s allowed by the rules.”

To be fair, the mod was probably just doing his job enforcing the rules brought down by TPTB, but it’s always struck me as a peculiarity of this place that while we try to enforce reasonable standards of discourse, especially in GD, any kind of blithering nonsense is given a pass as long as it touches in some way on religion. No doubt there is some history here that I’m not aware of, but it seems like a real anomaly.

And of course, that particular thread eventually did get shut down – as virtually all “witnessing” threads eventually do – after painfully struggling on and being a blight on the board for two weeks.

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