As Brandon pointed out earlier, this is an issue for the community that needs to be resolved with some semblance of specificity or else the mods won't know what to do and will act inconsistently.
To close or not to close has been discussed and debated
ad nauseam and to no foreseeable conclusion. And this thread tells me that ChiefDelphi (and its mods) need to present a rule to be followed regardless of what posters think of it sooner rather than later. It's up to you guys, because clearly the community can't and never will agree. Institute a rule and tell the mods to enforce it, or there will be another one of "this kind of thread" in the next two months and the cycle will repeat. From my persective (and please don't tell me my perspective is "wrong," because that makes no sense) there are two overwhelming schools of thought expressed in the community upon which the Powers that Be could base this rule:
1) Religious/Political/National issues can be discussed so long as threads of this kind don't tread onto the primacy of one belief or attempt to discredit another.
- precedent was set in the God thread that a (for the most part) scholarly and logical discussion of beliefs was probably crossing the line, because people are easily offended
- everyone has an opinion that they naturally want to express
- this broadens the scope of the forums and the community
- good for everyone that can handle forming an argument, and very bad for the minority of people who can't
2) We should as a community avoid all such discussion -- pretend it doesn't exist on the forums, which are for FIRST discussion anyway -- and we will be better for it.
- I can think of at least two respected posters that completely ignore this on all three counts in every post however it's not like they belong to this school of thought anyway
- keeps the forums focused on their original purpose
- will reduce flaming, pretty much guaranteed
- might drive away some posters who don't care for "dry secularism"
I'm going to refer to the mods as a single entity, because clearly they are trying to (and should) present as cohesive and consistent an image as possible to the community. A mod told Mike Dubreuil that his "perspective is wrong." I think the meaning of this is clear; it was never the intention of the moderators to do anything so vile as to censor a belief. I believe that. I have two things to say to that. First, what happened resembles the employment law term "indirect discrimination" in that it is unintentional and actively well-meaning but has a deliterious effect on some group. I would be lying if I didn't see the perceived merits in stopping discussion of the foundations of Mormonism (as Evulish mentioned) or Atheism. Secondly, I think the mods gave in to a request (or a series of requests) that had no justification other than "this is bad so you should close it," and did as they were asked, not based on any rule they were supposed to follow. I wasn't too impressed. Now feel free to tell me this isn't the case, but it sure is what appears to have happened.
My point is this: someone in charge needs to, with some urgency, institute a rule about expressing beliefs and opinions and tell the mods to enforce it with the ferocity of the Gestapo, or else controversy will pop up every time a lowly poster like me utters the words god, Iraq, or Bush.