In this thread, you chastised Der Trihs over his use of a metaphor as a personal attack. Frankly, I feel that if this was being used to address any other topic other than religion, you wouldn’t have gone a long way to make a nit-picky argument over an obvious metaphor.
Just registering my thoughts on matter.
-Acid Lamp
Ye gods…Did I really just defend Der Trihs ?
Posting a link to at least the page in question would be helpful (I spent a second scanning the linked to third page, confused).
I’ve seen some atheists go batshit at the suggestion that they may be missing out on something, or even that God loves them. Imagine how they’d feel if they were called diseased mentally ill con artists consumed by madness. That’s what Der Trihs called the OP, and by extension all the board’s members who are believers.
It’s OK. You get used to after a while. There’s still hope for him. You know that saying. It ain’t over til’ it’s over.
Meh. Der Trihs logically extended a metaphor in his usual acerbic manner. While he has often violated the “don’t be a jerk” rule in my mind, he didn’t make a personal attack. The whole thing strikes me as a mod taking an opportunity to spank a poster who he/she finds obnoxious.
Don’t get me wrong, I find D.T. a poor example of atheism, but this modding seemed personal to me.
If you replaced “Atheist” with “Democrat” and “Christian” with “Republican”, thereby changing a “religious” thread to a “political” thread (and it doesn’t matter if “Democrat” and “Republican” would be assigned the opposite way), I think/believe Tom would have reacted the same.
It was an obnoxious personal attack on Der Tris’ part (Dude, would you stop helping us out, because…you’re not. Helping, that is.). I have no problem with TomnDeb’s admonition.
Whether or not he gainsays it, that was a personal attack, at least as far as I am concerned. I would have taken it very personally. The fact that it was couched as a metaphor does not excuse it.
It looks like another application of the “insult the post, not the poster” rule in GD. I can call a post stupid, I can’t call the person who posted it stupid, even if one would logically infer that a person who posted stupid stuff is, himself, stupid. Similarly, Der Trihs is free to say that religion is a disease (insulting the idea of religion) but not to say that a particular religious poster is diseased (insulting someone for supporting the idea of religion.)
Although Tom has made mistakes in the past :eek: and has his shortcomings (which I’ve repeatedly attempted to help him realize and overcome, all, alas, to no avail 
), I agree. Unfortuantely, it was a case of good moderating. I say unfortunate because I love it when Der Trihs gives us a peak at what the extreme left believes.*
I just don’t see it.
He stated : Religion is like a disease. If you believe in religion you are sick with that disease.
It certainly is rude, and offensive, but no more so than his usual fare. If that is enough to warrant action, than it’s enough to warrant banning IMHO. Fair play to both sides. If a religiously oriented poster cares to post a rambling, scientifically dubious witess post; he or she invites that sort of scathing reply. While I don’t agree with what D.T. said, I think he’s got a right to say it.
Miller You might be right with the technicality there. I’m not certain that an extended metaphor without other information or a direct statement ought to be enough to warrant a mod action though. Seems a bit heavy handed to me.
Atheists don’t have to “imagine” what it’s like to be called the most vile of names, excluded from society in general, or attacked legally and physically by intellectual midgets who are philosophically equivalent to people that think Star Trek is real. We get to find out every day in the real world! It’s unfortunate that the cracker-worshippers won’t even allow themselves one thread on a message board to get back what they give all the time.
From one atheist to another: shut the fuck up, asshole.
Miller, I couldn’t have said it better myself. 
:eek:
Star Trek isn’t real? :dubious:
There’s a whole forum where you can bash us cracker-worshippers all you want. It just isn’t Great Debates.
<insert political party to be attacked> politics are stupid. If you believe in the policies or actions of your party, you are stupid.
You can state that you think the party in question is stupid. You can state that the politicians in that party are stupid. But when you say that the poster is stupid (even though the implication is there regardless) then you have crossed the line. One could state that religion is stupid. One could state that religious leaders are stupid. However, if one then goes on to call the poster (directly) stupid because of their religious belief then one has crossed the same line. Substitute <stupid> for any other insulting language…like <disease(d)> and you get the same result.
DT often goes over the top, especially when the thread concerns either religion or politics. He’s wildly zealous (one might even say rabidly so…well, this IS the Pit after all) on both subjects and tends to go nuts occationally in his foaming at the mouth rants on both subjects (more on religion I think).
Just my two cents worth…
-XT