[If you prefer, you can hear me tell this story.]

I realized within the last couple of years that I am an atheist. The more I read and thought about religion and politics, the more I worried about the issues which divide us humans from each other. It seems to me that many of these divisions--whipped up and exaggerated by dastardly and manipulative forces or not--are derived from faith.

So I went on an online pilgrimage just over two months ago. I set out in search of real conversation with real people, in hopes that I would find someone with whom to have a real conversation about our differences. Would we be able to communicate and understand each other? Would we agree about our differences? Could we ever begin to resolve them?

I achieved mixed results. I met some Christian maniacs; extreme fundamentalists with whom I was unable to communicate. But there were other fundamentalists (and ordinary believers) with whom I enjoyed some vigorous and enlightening debates. And when the moderator staff at http://www.christianforums.com succeeded in driving me off by deleting those of my posts deemed "objectionable," stifling discussion, and ignoring my efforts to reach out and understand their standards of discourse, I said goodbye. Though I had not been there long, I was gratified that I made an impression, and was sad to be separated from my new online friends. There was a touching combination of regret and understanding in the responses that were attached to my farewell message: some from fellow atheists, and most from believers.



















...and so I moved on. I stumbled onto another Christian forum, one with fewer members and a more personal feel. (At this new forum, like the totalitarian ChristianForums, members are divided into "believer" and "nonbeliever" groups; nonbelievers are prevented from participating in the "inner court" so as not to disturb conversations among the devout who are only in search of conversations intended to strengthen their faith. This is apparently one of many defenses that are required on religious forums against Internet Trolls, who come in all varieties.)

Starting anew, I was more optimistic about establishing a longer relationship with the Christians at WorthyBoards.com. Early on, a moderator publicly asked me to clarify my attitude about Jesus Christ, so that I could be appropriately pigeonholed. When I declared my intentions, I was embraced with open arms by this (as I later learned) more moderate of the site's moderators, though "Ted" hastened to insist that he is not strictly speaking a leader at the site.



My welcome lasted not quite seven days. In that time, as before, I met some maniacs. I even met one who recognized me from my stint at ChristianForums.



(Horizoneast did not deign to reveal his identity on the other site, nor did he respond to repeated invitations to describe the game he accused me of playing. But he was right about history repeating itself.) I also met some friends. These remarks were directed at me by Christians before my abrupt departure from the second Christian Board in as many months.









But soon the jig was up. As the conversations got more and more interesting, another moderator finally got around to re-reading my statement of purpose, posted when I was first challenged by moderator Ted. I had said:



Ted had been clear: "Without a doubt, the answer is......stay."

Challenged by two less welcoming moderators, I sensed the end was near, and posted a goodbye, punctuated with some of the quotes you see above. Fifteen minutes later my post had a response, from a moderator I had never encountered before. Shiloh357 said:



I was somewhat encouraged by this response. Perhaps my new friends Gerioke, Myco, Silentprayer, Marnie (and the rest) and I would not be separated from each other after all. But it was too much to hope for. Within minutes, my goodbye post, the confused requests for clarification from other members, and Shiloh357's response were deleted without a trace.

That was last night. Today I tried one last time to say farewell:



This post lasted not five minutes before it was deleted. It probably escaped notice by my friends. Predictably, my account at WorthyBoards.com has been disabled, and every last one of my many posts over the last two weeks was also unceremoniously deleted (anticipating this possibility, I had saved copies of all of the most interesting conversations. There's some great stuff in there I look forward to sharing if an interest develops). As you might imagine, this leaves some bizarre gaps in what is left of recent conversations there. This afternoon there is only confusion:







But in the end, this is the price paid for...for what? I don't know. Perhaps someone with experience protecting God's children from the dangers of expanding their horizons will join us here and fill us in. I have extended WorthyBoards staff a personal invitation by e-mailing them directly at worthyboards@gmail.com. I hope they join us expecting a more open and tolerant setting on my forum than I was offered on theirs.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
-- A. J. Leibling (Harper Book of Quotations, 1993 edition)

Now I own one, and I want you to help me operate it.

HorizonEast? apothanein kerdos? Franklin? Tapero? quatona? KCDAD? Beastt? Elman? Michael? Myco? Lynden1000? WhiteMageGirl? None? MelissaShea? FresnoJoe? faster_jackrabbit? Glory2000? Gerioke? The Lorax? Silentprayer? undone? Matthitjah? Ted? Traveler? Shiloh357? DarkNebulaWelder? HAZARD? Sol Invictus? I call out to you across the Internet's void, and I cannot reach most of you because you are so well cared for by your shepherds. Will you seek me out? You need only to Google my name, spblat, and you will find me. I'll save a spot for you.

While I wait, will you join me in open conversation?

this is a kick.

Hello spblat

I was actually googling someone else's name but saw that yours was included on one of the pages that came up. I'm sorry to hear of your excommunication from those Christian forums. This forum sounds like it has some promise. Glad you could get it set up. If you would like, I can help spread the word and hopefully attract some diverse characters.

I have an idea, based on your story and obvious need to preserve deleted posts. You should try and recreate those threads here (if you have saved enough material, that is) but keep them read only. These threads would show up on google eventually and these great conversations would live on despite moderators who wish otherwise. It would be interesting, also, to see if you get a reaction from CF and WB mods.

Looking forward to some lively debates here.

I have plenty of specific thoughts, opinions, etc. regarding your repeatedly disappointing experiences with Christian forums, but I will save them for future thread(s) dealing specifically with the issues. For now, let me just tell you this story ... absolutely true.

Back in high school, the mother of a friend of mine used to be a devout Jehovah's Witness, one of their top recruiters/preachers/whatever. I don't know what circumstances led up to it, but she eventually left the church, having become convinced that many of their teachings were wrong. Instead, she adopted a more mainstream branch of Christianity.

For years after they lost her, they targeted her house excessively during their community recruitment efforts, in the hopes of getting her back. Now, unlike most people, she was always very friendly, and invited them in for coffee and to discuss their religious beliefs.

Very often, the recruiters abandoned the Jehovah's Witness church as well, after their conversations with my friend's mom.

After a couple years of losing recruiters because of her, they blacklisted her house. No Jehovah's Witness recruiters ever visited her again, and on at least one occasion when she happened to be outside and saw them canvassing, she tried to speak with them, and they actively avoided her on sight.

Draw your own conclusions; personally, I find the story both insightful and hilarious.

ETA this link. Funny comic I just stumbled into, very appropriate for this thread.

Rainbird, that story warms my heart. LOVE THAT. Mark Carlton has said (paraphrasing, I think it was on his site) that this isn't a game, that there are souls at stake. This explains the seriousness with which Evangelicals take this sort of thing; I hadn't really thought about it like that.


Hi! Very nice to see you over here.


Oh yes please!!


A smashing idea. I'll come up with an approach to dribble some of that stuff out for discussion. I have quite a lot of it!

If you absolutely believed that anyone who did not see things your way was going to hell ... wouldn't you be trying your damnedest to get everyone--and especially the people you cared about--to see things your way? And yet, most people that don't already agree with you, are pretty much sick of hearing what you have to say.

If that's not a recipe for (dis-)stress, I don't know what is. This has always been my single ongoing gripe with Christianity. Take that single tenet out of it, and it becomes a wonderful religion.

Somebody called?

Either "worthy" is down or I've been banned from there. I think I went too far yesterday but it could just be the site. Nice site, btw.

Maybe they are cleaning house of all the heathens. The board currently has this message up:



Looks like a temporary thing.

I'm still going on parade. I need unedited, honest answers that will be in plain view of the whole board and not just a redirected few to "protect the innocent(uneducated)".

Hello, None!!

If I recall our conversations correctly, you'd be among the last to be banned from WB, and you are most welcome here. I hope you stick around, even after WB is back online, and if you were to dare inform some of the other WB folks about DH I'd be most appreciative.

Cheers and welcome

They haven't banned me yet but my views on "inerrant" Bibles have ticked some people off. I'm getting some "heretic" feedback here and there. Anyway, I'm gonna hang out here more this week, it seems nice...honest, etc. Will definately recommend.

Victory is mine!

Hi Sp,

Stumbled on this mucking around the web. I eventually got banned from WB for pointing out what a total hypocrit one of the soldiers was (Yzrf or something like that). Funny thing was, he got banned, and kept registering under a new name and posting--drove them nuts. Thought about rejoining, there were a couple of good guys there like Lorax, but havn't bothered.

Anyway, I remember you as another unfortunate target of the trailor park fundamentalists who know what they believe but can't tell you why without contradicting themselves.

I'll have a look around the place...

Myco! Welcome!

spblat,

I wouldn't be quite so quick to claim victory. Because I don't necessarily feel like I'm just a short distance from being lynched in this forum, doesn't mean that hostility doesn't exist. I will say that this is the best I've encountered so far, but I'm fairly certain that even this forum isn't close to ideal.

In His Grip,

christian_concern@yahoo.com