Banned topics of discussion

[Mirishka]

I think the following banned topics should be allowed to some extend:
"Religious opionions/debates
Hateful language about race, religion, country (Example: US vs. EU threads), political beliefs, etc"

Often threads get locked solely because "religious topics aren't allowed" which is frustrating. People want to have a lively fun discussion about such topics why go out of the way to block it, after all these kind of threads rise up regurarly.
Threads with such topics shouldn't be locked before some real reason arises and not just "nope not allowed".

It must be more work to moderate controversial topics but often relevant and important news touch these topics. Also for me it's important to have some entertainment value from reading and commenting on threads, it's always sad to see a mod lock em and ruin the fun.

Can't handle the rules here? Go make a blog and talk about whatever the hell you want.

[prwraith]

Can't handle the rules here? Go make a blog and talk about whatever the hell you want.

There's always you goody two shoes people around here. #occupymmoc muhaha

[Against the Modern World]

You've got another side, the religious who are as bad as the atheists people and vehemently say there is such a thing, and we also have no proof.

One is rational, two are not.

Or they have "personal proof" that's impossible to show on camera (cause it's personal experience), but atheists will dismiss it as dreams, coincidence, hallucinations, imagination or something else that fits in their worldview.

[prwraith]

Or they have "personal proof" that's impossible to show on camera (cause it's personal experience), but atheits will dismiss it as dreams, coincidence, hallucinations, imagination or something else that fits in their worldview.

"Proof" that you can not re-produce as proof in an academic setting is not proof.

For the record I'm totally in the agnostic camp, as soon as I see that proof I'm on board

[ipaq]

Faith is not an argument.

Its a disease.

Get your head checked out. =D

Infracted

[Against the Modern World]

For the record I'm totally in the agnostic camp, as soon as I see that proof I'm on board

This is one of the few "practices" that can be observed by others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof
Maybe this book could interest you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_of_Physics

I'm not too dogmatic, I believe in personal experience and try to learn wisdom from different sources and not dismiss them on sight. But many teachings can give you proof or result only after you heavily invest in them. I mean personal effort like special exercises, practice, meditations and so on.
No effort means no result for most people.

[AeneasBK]

This is one of the few "practices" that can be observed by others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo

From the article:

"Scientific investigation

A 1982 study[13] of the physiological effects of Tummo has been made by Benson and colleagues, who studied Indo-Tibetan Yogis in the Himalayas and in India in the 1980s. Conducted in Upper Dharamsala in India, it found that the subjects, three monks, exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3 °C. In a 2002 experiment reported by the Harvard Gazette,[14] conducted in Normandy, France, two monks from the Buddhist tradition wore sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism. A 2013 study[15] by Kozhevnikov and colleagues showed increases in core body temperature in both expert meditators from eastern Tibet and Western non-meditators.

To write plainly, Tummo is known in popular discussions as the process whereby the practitioner (monk, or otherwise) can raise his body temperature at will and on call. Films exist of near-naked monks bodies steaming while sitting in snow. Tummo could explain how near-nude holy men can live in very cold places with no shelter and few clothes. Tummo demonstrations are one of the few esoteric practices that practitioners will display to anyone and to science."

[Zebuthecow]

People who want certain subjects banned should have no Right to speak about any subject whatsoever.

[Deleted]

So we are discussing religion then? gg

[Wildtree]

I think this thread qualifies already too for the locking key.
Flaming and insulting others, a no go

Aside from that..
IF you sign up for the sites forums you acknowledge upfront to abide by the rules set that's in place. That means everyone knows the limitations from the very start.
With that said, the mods are very generous with the rule enforcement, and give the community a chance to discuss civil. But that's usually never the case for long. Sooner or later flaming and insult running rampant.
Just in this topic we find examples too....

Faith is not an argument.

Its a disease.

Get your head checked out. =D

Both postings refer to religion. Both postings are examples how not to discuss... Since both are too, only opinion.

The first one would just need some minor rewording as in "I don't think faith can be an argument".

The second one is outright subject to infraction/ban.
The ban of topics protects parts of the community from itself.

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To my mind, if the forum was via vetted people, who were willing to partake in intelligent discourse, and were selected via invite or via recommendation, then I think yes, we should allow any and all topics of discussion.

However, as this forum is a free-for-all, with no real limit on application, it will nearly always degenrate into name-calling, hatred, and troll baiting. Thus, we should maintain the ban.

agreed with you... To lift the limitations, it would require a "premium sub forum" that's accessible only by select users, that qualify for it, and is invisible for everyone else.

[Deleted]

In the section "Forum Rules" at the top, in the list of disallowed topics, "Religious opionions/debates" seems to be the only one that looks a bit dubious - the rest is all fairly obvious.

However, in the sticky forum post in the "Off-topic forums", a much much wider list of topics is banned. A selection:
- Religion
- Nationalism and nation bashing
- Conspiracies
- Sexuality/Gender identity

I understand the practical reasons for not allowing this. The nation bashing thing is obvious. Debates on religion usually require heavy moderation and can evoke emotional responses in people, and discussions tend to be endless. Conspiracies, same thing as with religion. Sexual/gender identity... Not too sure why that would be in the list. It may offend some cavemen, I guess, or they might not find it a suitable topic for some potentially young forum readers...?

At any rate, since the forum is focused on video games, disallowing these topics is a practical way of keeping moderation a lot more easy and less time-consuming. There are other forums where these topics can be discussed that are more suitable.

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People who want certain subjects banned should have no Right to speak about any subject whatsoever.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean everyone has to tolerate and allow you saying anything anywhere. Nobody is forcing you to go on these forums. By doing so, you agree with their "house rules". If you don't abide, they can kick you out. That has nothing to do with rights. If you want to say stuff that's not allowed on a particular forum, make your own. You have the right to do so.

[CandyCotton Marshmallows]

there are other sites you can find as great places for religious topics or country favoritism debates.

I'm curious about opi-onions ... do they go well with a burger? or better grilled with a steak?

[Deleted]

More like "It's a fairy tale, stop believing in fictional characters you stupid brainwashed sheep. Lolololol religion is pooop loololol

Theists cannot do the same. What would they laugh at? Thermodynamics? Evolution? Relativity?

that idiot Richard Dawkins

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Oslo, and honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.

His other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009).

Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and he was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph's 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses. He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner.

Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts.

In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius). Explaining the reasoning behind the genus name, lead researcher Rohan Pethiyagoda was quoted as stating that "Richard Dawkins has, through his writings, helped us understand that the universe is far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined [...] We hope that Dawkinsia will serve as a reminder of the elegance and simplicity of evolution, the only rational explanation there is for the unimaginable diversity of life on Earth.".

In a poll held by Prospect magazine in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US- and UK-based expert panel.

Can you please share a bit of your career, awards and recognitions to take your statement a bit more seriously lad?

One is rational, two are not.

Since I said there is a small teapot orbiting our earth, it's really there. It's just so small you can't see it with any telescope, but it's there. You don't know, you can't be sure.

The agnostic atheist approach is scientifically correct, however you can't compare gnostic atheism and gnostic theism since there is no evidence to support the theists.

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People who want certain subjects banned should have no Right to speak about any subject whatsoever.

This lad knows what's up.

[Wildtree]

This lad knows what's up.

No he doesn't...
Because we're on a private platform with rules set by the private owner, public laws do apply only in limitation.
And the limitation is criminal laws. No other laws apply at all.
We're all essentially invited guests, and it's expected to act like one.

[Deleted]

More so than Dawkins I loved hearing Hitchens debate. To me he had a very elegant and precise way to cut to the point.

My problem, which maybe someone can help me with, is that both Dawkins and Hitchens profess/professed to be athiest, but that would require proof (to prove the non existence of a deity), which is/was never presented.

The truth is we simply do not know either way where the turtles end and who put them there. The best you can be is agnostic in my estimation.

Have I missed?

[Ebildays]

To be able to have banned topics of discussion there would need to be mods on whose sole job is to moderate threads like that. It would be easier to just allow them to have a sub forum with its own sets of rules and mods. It would also depend heavily on posters reporting offensive post so they could be edited and the poster warned.

Allow such threads to exist is a lot of work for a moderation staff to take on and they really need people willing to committed to that moderation. So when asking for things like this we also have to ask who is going to do the heavy lifting so to speak.

As for the topic of banned topics I would love to be able to talk about religion. I have done so for years and it shocking the amount of misinformation that both sides have. While evolution most likely did happen for right now it is still a theory and therefore not proven to have happened. Science in some ways is very much like religion as you have to have faith that the scientist was correct. But unlike religion science grows and expands as we learn more about the world around us. Information that was once seen as true is proven false and science moves forward because of that.

If done well without both sides going into dogma religious debates are wonderful.

[Deleted]

While evolution most likely did happen for right now it is still a theory and therefore not proven to have happened.

Science in some ways is very much like religion as you have to have faith that the scientist was correct.

it shocking the amount of misinformation that both sides have

Yes, it indeed is. Like you right now.

[Deleted]

While evolution most likely did happen for right now it is still a theory and therefore not proven to have happened

I don't think you understand what a scientific theory is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

[Imnick]

Guys I don't think the rule is "these topics aren't allowed in off topic so talk about them in suggestions and feedback instead".

[Darsithis]

Topics such as religion aren't allowed here for good reason: one, they're faith, which means it's an opinion and not an objective fact that can be discussed. Two, they never remain civil. Someone always comes in to ruin the discussion with bashing on both sides.

If you have concerns about a particular thread breaking the rules with these banned topics, come to me or another global moderator.