DiscussMormonism.com

Stem - you spend an inordinate amount of time bemoaning the hostility you perceive is directed towards LDS posters specifically.

Is this how you see it?

(please provide examples of hostility so the board may better understand what is perceived as hostility).

I usually see the board being hostile when the LDS poster is being hostile themselves. For example, Will is usually always hostile and that' why the board is hostile towards him and that is the same with Whyme (but he isn't really LDS).

I think it was MsJack that pointed out earlier what Stem does. He takes offense and thinks people are being hostile when really they are not. Then he starts to be hostile himself and that's when members of the board will be hostile towards him.

It's probably best to turn the other cheek when people are being hostile towards us but that can be freakin hard to do. Especially if they are misrepresenting us and are words.

Perception. If the average LDS lurker thinks this board is hostile, then chances are, said lurker will not join or post. Count the number of pro voices and the number of con voices. There is your answer.

harmony wrote:Perception. If the average LDS lurker thinks this board is hostile, then chances are, said lurker will not join or post. Count the number of pro voices and the number of con voices. There is your answer.

Well just because more people here disagree with the Mormon church does not mean it has to be a hostile place for them. But they are trained to stay away from people that disagree with them cause the are "antis" so they will think that this place is hostile even though it is not.

IMHO, this board is no more hostile to LDS posters than any group of rational people who don't believe in nonsense would appear to any other group who do believe in nonsense, and are willing to defend their unfounded beliefs in public.

It is as simple as that.

harmony wrote:Perception. If the average LDS lurker thinks this board is hostile, then chances are, said lurker will not join or post. Count the number of pro voices and the number of con voices. There is your answer.

BS. You can't conclude hostility toward LDS simply from the number of LDS posters. It's far more likely that the low number of LDS posters has to do with the board's allowance of what many LDS would consider anti-mo sentiment (and we all know that facts about Joseph Smith, etc. are often construed that way).

People feel threatened when they are unable to meet rational challenge to an irrational belief in some (any) religious mythology.

Sharp kids (teenagers) are often unwelcome in religious school classes. They ask too many questions for which the religious “teachers” have no rational response.

Questions are threatening.

JAK

harmony wrote:Perception. If the average LDS lurker thinks this board is hostile, then chances are, said lurker will not join or post. Count the number of pro voices and the number of con voices. There is your answer.

Is that imbalance because of hostility or because of a lack of available answers to substantive questions?
Did Peterson leave because he got called names or because he got stumped on two seperate threads that required substantive answers from him?
Did Schryver leave because people were hostile towards him or because people got fed up of his misogynism (is that an actual word)?
Would you describe Nehor and Pahoran as pacifist posters?

I think the critical arguments presented on this board are frightening to a lot of pro voices, largely because there is no easy rebuttal to most. But that surely isn't hostility, is it?

Jon,

I try to conveniently call out the hostility when I see it. I don't know why you're asking me to head out and dig up the hostile posts as some list in this thread.

I don't think the hostility is directed only at LDS posters. Indeed there is a fair amount of hostility directed at LDS posters though, or LDS non-posters quite often. I can and does go both ways.

As per Rambo's point, its far more hostile, in my mind but apparently not in others, to say to a poster "you have nothing to offer me, whatsoever so stop responding to me" instead of just ignoring someone than to say "you're wrong". You see MsJack somehow perceived hostility in the you're wrong I offered her, but somehow her you're worthless to me type of response was spun as nice and wholesome in her mind. I suppose you can use MsJack's responses to me as an example, if you like.

jon wrote:I think the critical arguments presented on this board are frightening to a lot of pro voices, largely because there is no easy rebuttal to most. But that surely isn't hostility, is it?

You asked a question. I answered it. Now you're arguing with me. JAK says I'm irrational. Schmo says I'm BS. DrW states his case in terms of rational people (himself, of course), nonsense, unfounded (LDS believers, of course). Rambo blames others.

Absolutely none of you took responsibility for what is obviously a hostile environment here.

Nothing new in that. Own it; you created it.