Banned from Christianity Board
- Thread starter SteVen
- Start date
SteVen
Active member
I hate to do it, but maybe I need to be done with the church.
Although, the church (my church) didn't do this to me.
/ cc: @O'Darby III
Although, the church (my church) didn't do this to me.
/ cc: @O'Darby III
SteVen
Active member
Thanks, @mailmandan
This makes two forums I have been booted off of.
And not in reasonable way. No discussion, no warning, just gone. (blocked)
]
This makes two forums I have been booted off of.
And not in reasonable way. No discussion, no warning, just gone. (blocked)
]
Moderators out of control. I kindly asked them to remove a dishonest post by @Mattathias and they rejected it with a snarky comment.
Well— all I can say is that this place is intended to be a place where adults can talk in spite of, and sometimes because of our differences.
And sometimes without condemning one another to hell.
mailmandan
New member
Christian Forums is my least favorite Christian forum by far! It's been hijacked by liberals (for the most part) in the political threads and false teachers (for the most part) in the theological threads. Getting banned from Christian Forums for standing up against liberals and false teachers comes as no surprise and is a badge of honor in my opinion. I'm more surprised to hear you were banned from the Christianity Board.
SteVen
Active member
Agree.I'm more surprised to hear you were banned from the Christianity Board.
Something was going on behind the scenes.
It was a surprise to me too.
]
Are you sure you are banned? It shows you as a member, and active only 16 minutes ago.
SteVen
Active member
If I click on anything I get this message:
Oops! We ran into some problems.
You have been banned for the following reason: Violation of forum rules..]
If I was to ban someone here-- there would be a strike through their name and it would show that they are banned. They must be masking it on that site because there is no way to tell you are banned at all. When I click on your profile it shows inaccessible, but some people do that on purpose because they don't want their profile viewed.
I just replied to one of your posts in the 'Are you sending your neighbors to hell" thread-- and again, there is no indication that you are no longer an active member.
O'Darby III
Active member
Congratulations! If you can manage to get yourself banned from any and all other forums on which you participate, I think you'll find you have begun a new chapter in peace of mind and mental health – seriously.
Any forum with a Statement of Faith is obviously a minefield. The owners are attempting to promote and maintain a particular culture. To do so, the forum pretty much has to operate at the level of the lowest common denominator – which in the case of Christianity is some version of mindless orthodoxy. (As we have seen, however, even those "real Christians" at the lowest common denominator come unhinged and snarl at each other five posts into almost every thread.)
I was surprised – genuinely surprised – I wasn't banned at CB sooner. My posts and blog were clearly outside the boundaries of what the culture could handle. I originally thought it was actually a more enlightened forum but soon realized it was because the moderators are mostly asleep at the wheel. I was banned at ChristianForums.net for precisely the same reason – just simply, "We don't want your kind of thinking here. You're upsetting our faithful regulars with names like 'ForHisGlory'." Forums such as these can tolerate true goofballs - Flat Earthers and Young Earthers and whatnot - to some extent, but not someone who actually has the background and intelligence to be a challenge.
I've never been banned anywhere with any sort of warning or explanation. It’s always just a matter of attempting to log in and suddenly discovering I've been banned. At ChristianForums.net, I managed to get the personal email of the site owner and asked for the courtesy of an explanation. I got nothing but a snarky "Get lost" in response.
Internet forums – all of them – are inherently dysfunctional and toxic. I have friends who participate on what should be innocuous forums about things like photography, and they are EXACTLY the same as the most dysfunctional Christian forum. As I've said elsewhere, the JFK assassination forum, where we had to use real names, real photos and verifiable academic credentials, was and is among the worst.
In the first place, internet forums attract a certain personality type. They are not polite conversations among normal people. They just aren't. But the format itself is dysfunctional. The silly and always inconsistent "moderation" by suppose "moderators," some of whom are typically among the most blatant wackos themselves. The silly system of "rep points" and "post counting," conditioning participants as though they were Pavlov's dogs. (Wow, ForHisGlory has 77,939 posts and 112,000 rep points – she's a veritable forum goddess!) The silly and always inconsistent system of "reporting" offensive posts. The supposed "forum rules," which are typically honored in the breach and enforced largely on the basis of whether the moderators like or don't like the violator. None of it really works. It's inherently dysfunctional.
At the now-defunct, atheist-dominated Forum for Active and Critical Thinking Skills (FACTS), some of us on this side of sanity broke off and started an email list of people who seemed to have interesting things to say and could do so without coming unhinged. It wasn't perfect, but it was better.
My participation on forums has been far more sporadic over the past ten years than it used to be. I always reach a point of feeling slightly stupid and disappointed in myself for participating at all. Why am I doing this? Do I get anything at all out of it? Is it just mental masturbation because I'm bored and can think of nothing better to do? Can I really find nothing better to do with my time? The only justification that makes any sense to me is that I'm writing for myself, exercising my brain and organizing my thoughts – but I can do that without a forum.
Perhaps you'll find your niche at this place, although with only a handful of participants it already seems headed down the path of all forums – and I believe this is because they are all inherently dysfunctional and toxic. I actually do think you'd find enhanced peace of mind if you'd simply break free. The sheer number of threads you start does seem somewhat indicative of an obsession or addiction.
And that's all I have to say about that. If this is my last post ever on any forum, I'll be very pleased with myself. Although the Flat Earth forum does look like it might have potential, I must say, so maybe I'll just call myself ThinksItsRound as see how it goes for awhile, https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php … Or maybe not. (Wait, there actually is a participant called EarthIsRound, so maybe I'll have some kindred spirits!)
You will find Beloved O'Darby is the same way.
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