Too much for what? Folks post about their concerns, and no one is obliged to read or participate in topics that don't concern them. There might be an issue of quality, or of duplication, and to deal with that, a moderator or two with a particular interest would be required.

Wayfarer?

Sometimes I get frustrated that the board seems dominated by:

(1) Religious believers or people who want to bring up religion in any event
(2) Idealists, representationalists and the like
(3) People who seem to mostly (or often exclusively) be a fan of continental philosophy

But that's just because I'm the opposite of all three.

On a more charitable view, it gets me thinking about and reading stuff I normally wouldn't bother with.

From a modding perspective, one possible consideration is whether a thread is 'intra-religious' or has wider bearing on topics outside that one particular system of belief. I have this thread in mind as an example of an 'intra-religious' one:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4669/christian-exclusivist-universalism

- in which what's at stake are basically arguments internal to Christianity, without having much bearing on wider, philosophical considerations. I would suggest that, would any threads be subject to brutal culling, this kind of thread ought to qualify - sheerly because we're a philosophy forum, and not a religious one - if there is a intra-religious debate, it can be taken to one of the multiple religious forums that exist out there. But that's just a proposal, pending others, for consideration.

and no one is obliged to read or participate in topics that don't concern them. — unenlightened

Voting for this.

and no one is obliged to read or participate in topics that don't concern them. — unenlightened


Voting for this. — Jake

Yeah, same here.

I, personally, really hate religion. It limits the mind and wastes time. However, I am not going to strip the ability to talk about religion from people, especially if they bring up good points about it.

I, personally, really hate religion. It limits the mind and wastes time. However, I am not going to strip the ability to talk about religion from people, especially if they bring up good points about it. — RosettaStoned

Well, speaking of good points :smile: it doesn't seem that rational to really hate something as large as religion. Religion is the largest cultural event in human history and contains within it's walls the best and worst of what humanity can offer and everything in between.

My general feeling is that, for whatever reason, a lot of religious folks are being woke to philosophical thoughts and feelings then find this website in order to express themselves and discuss these thoughts. Yet they're filtering this philosophical itch through religion so the result is a weird mix of hyper-religious yet philosophically naive posts. They tend to make new topics - rather than discussing in existing topics - because they have no sense of how to enter into conversations they don't understand.

My fear with turning these sorts of people away or making them feel unwelcome is that they might fail to discover philosophy, which is a distinct sort of good (in my humble opinion). But then the site also has no obligation to cater to the weird and usually naive ramblings of a bunch of ultra-religious folks who manifestly know next to nothing about philosophy proper.

So I think it's reasonable to suggest it's within the purview of moderator control to exercise naked power and make a judgment call on this.

if there is a intra-religious debate, it can be taken to one of the multiple religious forums that exist out there. — StreetlightX

Leaving to the side the question of how to regulate the site, your observation was what first struck me about the number of posts of that sort.

Maybe the attraction of this place over others is the openness to logical arguments that makes it easier to isolate the issue that interest the posters without going through a lot of other qualifications and arguments typical of theology discussions where the topics are intertwined with centuries of other discussions of them.

Perhaps there could be a "theological" version of the Lounge where discussions go for those who want to pursue them on that basis.

I think this is spot on the dial. I agree that we should be more welcoming to various folk of all traditions. Since this site is composed of the majority of Westerners, then I don't think anything could be done in regards to the issue. It's unfortunate, that the categories cannot be implemented in practice due to the workings of the forum. Otherwise, we could have sticky and guidelines for each sub-forum, where the inhabitants of this forum might flourish.

It's unfortunate, that the categories cannot be implemented in practice due to the workings of the forum. Otherwise, we could have sticky and guidelines for each sub-forum, where the inhabitants of this forum might flourish. — Wallows

What do you mean? Specifically, what is "implementing the categories in practice"? And what is "sticky and guidelines"?

What do you mean? — jamalrob

Well, based on what has already been said and voted on, we reached a consensus that the forums shouldn't be categorized, although that feature is available.

Still don't know what you mean. There are many categories and every discussion is in one of them. All discussions are categorised.

Still don't know what you mean. There are many categories and every discussion is in one of them. All discussions are categorised. — jamalrob

I meant the default layout of the site, was voted on to remain as the way things are. When we voted on the issue it was about making the site categorized into each sub-division of philosophy.

I just told you: the site is categorized. It always has been.

Oh, okay. Sorry for the confusion.

I’m interested in, and often participate in, topics with religious aspects. (I often say, and believe, that there’s a tacitly religious dimension to much secular philosophy, because of the sense in which it has become defined in terms of what it excludes. )

On the other hand, I think questions about Biblical theology and Christian doctrines of salvation (like the one mentioned above) don’t really belong here (although that is not at all to suggest that they ought not to be allowed.) But the issue with committed Christians (especially evangelical Protestants) is that they really can’t accomodate pluralism. There’s an undercurrent of wanting-to-convert that you can never quite shake when discussing with them.

But I think the reason why so many quasi-religious topics are posted here is because people really are wondering about them. They address, as Paul Tillich put it, ‘matters of ultimate concern’, questions which every generation, and every culture, seems to want to ask. Although I do note that the consensus on this particular forum (as distinct from the previous one) seems to be more open to spiritual perspectives.

(In regard to modding - I’m currently a mod at DharmaWheel and will probably leave it at that for now, I’m working a busy contract which requires acquisition of a lot of new skills so am pre-occupied.)

Does atheistic evangelism count as religion?

Does atheistic evangelism count as religion? — Noah Te Stroete

No.
Whatever complaints you may have for the atheist point of view, it does not help the discussion to subsume those points of views as another creed.
If you have a "creed", putting these other people into a group is just a result of whatever you were thinking in the first place. And that kind of classification is why atheists got started wondering if there was another way to look at things.

I don’t have a complaint about atheists. A lot of atheists complain about religion, though.

Furthermore, I was talking about evangelical atheism. Shouldn’t they just not participate in “theological” threads instead of trying to convert people? Isn’t that their main complaint about religions?

I don't think the important stuff is about saving religion or condemning it.
We are here now. There are different ways to look at it.
We are the important thing, in the time given to us to do something.
Some ways of thinking draw closer to that and others do not.
I am only interested in the former.

That’s a fine point. I didn’t have you in mind, by the way.

Understood.

As one of the kind of 'spiritual if not religious' types who posts here, there is one observation I would like to make.

I have often in the past referred to and quoted from Thomas Nagel's 2012 book Mind and Cosmos which drew a hostile reaction from the mainstream of academics in the US and Britain, and was (somewhat tongue in cheek) designated the 'most despised science book' of that year by The Guardian. Despite Nagel claiming throughout (and in many other places) that he is atheist and lacks any 'sense of the divine', the fact that he wrote a book meticulously challenging what he called 'neo-Darwinian materialism' meant that to many of his critics, he simply must be, if not actually creationist, at least an apologist for creationism, or something of the kind, of which he was accused by more than one of those critics ¹.

The reason I mention this, is because I think it shows that the adamantly 'naturalist' attitude which animates the secular West, is a de facto religion, in the sense that it circumscribes the kinds of ideas in terms of which sensible people - scientifically-informed people! - are supposed to think. Nagel's criticism of the consensus view - which is, roughly, that the Universe can be understood in largely physical terms, as the consequence of non-directed forces and the interactions of atoms, out of which life has evolved more or less 'by chance' in the sense of it having not been the result of an act of intentional creation, and within which the human mind is fundamentally a consequence of, if not a purely physical, then at least a purely natural process, however understood. There are many commonly-accepted tropes and axioms which fall out of this shared understanding, particularly in terms of the sense that human nature is a product of the essentially Darwinian process so memorably described in his oft-quoted metaphor of the 'tangled bank' (which as has often been noted dovetails rather nicely with laissez faire economic rationalism.)

The point I am making is that, to question this consensus, is to be categorised or labelled as 'religious', even for those who claim they are not. And that's why I say that this consensus view is itself religious - not at all in the sense of being a set of beliefs about supernatural deities, or anything of the kind, as it certainly is not that, but as a normative set of values and principles which guide, or should guide, what we think of ourselves and the world around us ². This will sometimes slip out as an (often angry) rejection of the suggestion that we can think of ourselves as anything other than apes, or at least a species.

And I think that is the cultural dynamic that is often what is behind many of the religious or religious-sounding threads that appear on this board.

--------
2. One of the most succinct statements of which was a Steven Pinker essay Science is not the Enemy of the Humanities, partially inspired, one suspects, as a criticism of Nagel, and also a source of considerable controversy in its own right.

Need a safe space.

Need a safe space. — All sight

Faith, does require that.

Especially at schools.


No, hang on......

Just accept faith

Great points, and well said.

Personally, to me the apparent great divide between theism and atheism is mostly a form of mythology. I see a bigger divide between the adamant people on both sides, and the calm reasonable people on both sides.