[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Facing The Challenge web site / Ground Rules

[Amanda]

Lou_Selasic opined:

If Christians beleve that Jesus Christ is the only way to
> find God (because this is what Jesus claimed in John Chapter 14,
> verse 6), then any other faith which says there is another way to
> find God contradicts this. They cannot both be right. One of them (or
> both of them) must be "wrong".

Not true. I will digress a bit and give you the explanation I gave my
daughter, when she was straining her 6-year understanding to encompass why
anyone would hate strangers enough to kill them (a la Sept. 11) and we got
into different religions. I took her around to the front of our house and I
asked her what it looked like. She said it was light blue & white, and
smooth (the front is stucco). I took her around to the back and asked the
same thing. It was darker blue and wooden (siding). Then I asked her what
would happen if someone who had only ever seen the front met someone who had
only ever seen the back--would they ever agree on what it looked like? No.
Would either of them be wrong? No. Could they fight about it? Yes. Would
that be bad? Yes. Without ever seeing the whole house, would they ever
understand? No. She got it.

The mortal mind is incapable of comprehending the fullness of the deity;
that is where faith and mystery come in. My beliefs are strong. But I am
also prepared to accept that I am seeing one side of the house, one facet of
the jewel, and that I will not be able to fathom the inherent "rightness" of
apparently disparate belief systems until after I get to see the whole
house.

> You may think your bank account is 2,000 dollars in credit. Your bank
> manager may disagree and say it is 1,000 dollars in the red. You
> cannot both be right. One of you must be wrong.

This isn't the same thing. This is a fact situation that can be cleared up
with some examination. Someone will have made an accounting error. And if
it's my account and my luck, it will be me. The point is, in this example
there are distinct parameters of hard fact and cash which can be uncovered.
It's not applicable.
>
> Lastly (almost), it is going to be inevitable that with such a
> diversity of backgrounds, opinions and views expressed in this chat
> group that someone, somewhere is going to be offended by someone
> else's opinion about something (especially religion). So be it. But I
> really do not see why there has to be so much censorship in the form
> of banned topics (e.g. that book by Richard Abane), especially when
> us newbies have never seen the original postings. The skill is to
> disagree with someone else without being abusive or contemptuous.

A skill which the distinguished banned subject of discussion did not have;
nor did some of us, when he was posting. Anyone who's genuinely curious
about the original postings can easily go find them--they weren't deleted to
my knowledge. We're not hiding anything, it was just a genuinely painful and
flaming and upsetting episode in a usually rather fun list, and we don't
want a repeat.

And there really isn't that much that is banned. The Holocaust, politics
(and this means direct political statements), and Richard Abanes. All we ask
for on any other sensitive topics, is, well, sensitivity. That's not a lot
of censorship.

Lastly, on a general note (i.e., not aimed at this specific poster):
One needs only toodle over to some of the less-moderated lists to see the
chaos and inanity that can result from less attention by those In Charge.
The moderators and elves put in a load of work on these lists, because they
love the subject matter, NOT because they're into power tripping. They do
have lives and they lend a considerable amount of those lives to helping
keep lists of this size friendly and welcoming and intelligent and to the
point and not totally overwhelming in volume. We could do with a bit more
appreciation of the time they put in, and a bit less griping about how
restricted all us poor listmembers are. We sound like teenagers who haven't
been allowed to have the car because we didn't do our homework. Jeez.

--Amanda, veteran listee and Abanes' old list-elf