The Upper Room

El'endia Starman

12:00 AM

@Anonymous [shrugs] I don't know those cultures, so I can't answer your question in that regard.

Jas 3.1

12:58 AM

@Caleb I want you to nominate yourself.

@El'endiaStarman And you.

@waxeagle And definitely you.

Shog9

@Jas3.1 christianity.stackexchange.com/election/1#post-17590

the others are slacking yet

Jas 3.1

@Shog9 phew

Anonymous

So, how do we vote?

El'endia Starman

@Jas3.1 I started working on my nomination earlier today.

@Anonymous That'll happen during election phase.

Anonymous

Would adultery and sodomy fall under fornication? Is fornication the big umbrella term for any sexual activity outside of marriage or lifelong commitment?

Jas 3.1

1:01 AM

How do I ping David Stratton?

Anonymous

@Jas3.1 Maybe you may send him a message. :)

Jas 3.1

@Anonymous Thanks Captain... how do I send him a message if his name doesn't come up when I type @D...?

Shog9

Fornication

Fornication typically refers to consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. For many people, the term carries a moral or religious association, but the significance of sexual acts to which the term is applied varies between religions, societies and cultures. The definition is often disputed. In modern usage, the term is often replaced with the more judgment-neutral terms premarital sex, sex before marriage, or extramarital sex. Etymology and usage The word derives from Latin, fornix meaning "arch", supposedly as a euphemism for "brothel". The first record...

@Jas3.1 just type his name prefixed by @ - even though he's not in the room now, he's been here recently enough to be notified by mention.

svidgen

@DavidStratton Please nominate yourself.

Jas 3.1

@@DavidStratton Go enter your name for moderator nomination. (please.)

Dan

1:23 AM

@Caleb ok then. Submit yourself

svidgen

@Dan @Caleb's already in the running.

Dan

@svidgen :P

wax eagle

2:28 AM

wow, good chance we see a primary

Paul A. Clayton

It looks like Christianity.SE is relatively Meta: 6.5 ratio of main to meta questions (556 / 3,639) compared to 10.9 (9,809 / 896) for Science Fiction & Fantasy, 13.6 (8,094 / 593) for mi yodeya, 10.0 (5,276 / 525) for Role Playing Games, etc. It looks like only Skeptics is "more Meta". Part of this is youth, but part of it is probably the greater need for guidance given the topic. However, I do wonder if there are other factors. Looking at the Data Explorer main page made me a bit curious.

Does Elisha speak?

3:09 AM

1

Q: Moderator Election questions

Q1: What is expected term of service for a moderator? Q2: If one were at risk of being completely offline the week of July 21, does this hamper one's election chances?

wax eagle

3:27 AM

@PaulA.Clayton that sounds about right. You might check us against prog.se although that would have been a more appropriate comp about 2 years ago

Anonymous

3:39 AM

wax eagle, what is the difference between teaching and preaching? Earlier, you said that women cannot preach, but they can teach bible studies.

Wouldn't leading bible studies classes be a form of preaching or church leadership?

Anonymous

3:55 AM

What counts as reading the Bible? If a person only read snippets of the Bible, does that still count as reading it? What if a person intends on finishing Bible-reading but dies before he/she accomplishes his/her task?

Paul A. Clayton

4:06 AM

@waxeagle Counting questions before 9 Feb 2011, Programmers.SE had 3681 main questions (cf. C.SE 3,639) and "only" 305 meta questions (based on 1541 full pages of 15 +7 main questions asked 9 Feb 2011 or later; 80 pages + 11 meta). Before 3 June 2011 (slightly more than 2x main questions), 7421 main to 516 meta (but strangely there were no meta questions between 15 February and 2 July!) The ratio went from 12.1 to 14.4 at Programmers.SE with that (slightly more than) doubling.

David Stratton

4:49 AM

@caseyr547 - do you really not see how this is bad? The person asking this question is clearly vulnerable and is going to nameless, faceless strangers on the Internet for advice on something with possible eternal implications. I agree 100% with the answer you gave, but is it really wise to take a young kid, vulnerable, and encourage him to get his advice about God off the Internet? Really, you think that's a GOOD thing?

The above is in reference to christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/17606/…

I don't have a problem with the content of your answers. I just think you don't realize the dangers of training people to trust strangers on the internet for advice as important as matters of Truth and God.

Anonymous

@DavidStratton David Stratton! I'm so glad that you returned to the Stack Exchange! I want to ask you something. Do you really reject that the earth is 4.5 billion years old?

El'endia Starman

@Anonymous ...you just reminded me of a reporter shoving their microphone into someone's face. :P

David Stratton

@Anonymous Yes. I do.

Isn't there another chat room around here somewhere for discussing Creationism?

I seem to remember several people suggesting we take it to that room if we're going to talk about that.

El'endia Starman

in Creationism vs., 13 secs ago, by Stack Exchange

El'endia Starman has unfrozen this room.

Have fun.

David Stratton

@El'endiaStarman - Are you re-nominating yourself? I'd be greatly disappointed if you didn't.

El'endia Starman

5:00 AM

@DavidStratton I'm definitely nominating myself. Just taking time to compose my nomination........a LOT of time, yes. I blame conversations with friends. :P

And actually, I never nominated myself the first time. If you go way back in Meta, there's the thread for nominations for pro-tem mods. I'm not in there.

David Stratton

5:57 AM

All right.. What's with the
"Does Elisha Speak?" user.. Normally when a Meta post is sent here it's under a "Community" user. Is this a pseudonym?

El'endia Starman

@DavidStratton Hehehehe...so, there are three feeds that post questions in this room. Their default name is "Stack Exchange", but that name can be changed. Caleb decided to change the names of the three feeds to "Elisha spake thus:" (Eschewmenical blog posts), "Does Elisha speak?" (Meta posts), and "Ask Elisha" (questions on History.SE about Christianity).

I rather like it, actually. :P

Does Elisha speak?

6:34 AM

0

Q: Who are the most senior users here?

As moderator election is underway, I'm interested to know who is the most senior user here in Christianity.SE, who knows about the site from the beginning. It might be useful in deciding which candidates to vote. I can't find a way to sort the users according to their joining date.

discussion

Caleb

6:46 AM

@David yes it is a pseudonym. I was having fun playing with the feed bot. If it bothers anybody we can make it whatever y'all feel like it should be.

I'm not set on anything, those names were just a lark.

El'endia Starman

7:05 AM

Oh, hey! Four moderator positions available!

El'endia Starman

7:20 AM

@TRiG: BEHOLD!

El'endia Starman

7:37 AM

> Ideally, Moderators are elected by the community and that's why you'll have your elections in several weeks.

Today I learned: when Grace Note says "several", he doesn't mean around 5-7, but rather he means something more like 96.

justbelieve

@fredsbend What is abhorrent about my NOT endorsing eugenics (perhaps I should have phrased that more strongly as "Let everyone reproduce as they please and as they do now"), and advocating mandatory early education? Keep in mind that you have advocated both extra-judicial killings and hereditary-disease-based eugenics.

@TRiG Whatever you may want to call it, the issue is taking advantage of a child's credulous mind, as well as of the physical and psychological coercion that a parent can exert upon their dependents. If you use that force to teach kids falsehoods (YEC) or myths not supported by evidence, WITHOUT giving them access to critical thinking apparatus and the history of religious diversity, I would still call that brainwashing. Opinions formed at a young age are extremely hard to shake later

Which is probably why you see muslims crowds chanting various things in unison. At least in the western world education is more consistent and, thanks to the secular state model, harder for fanatical parents to escape.

And as much as the international situation permits, I would argue that forcing primitive societies to give their children access to critical thinking and skepticism resources will lead to fewer religious wars (and in the post-Hiroshima world, decrease the probability of nuclear extinction of our species)

Since this misconception seems to come up again and again, I have never advocated taking children away from parents except in the cases of suicide cults, incest and the like. There are less dramatic solutions.

However, it will be interesting to see exactly who took the children physically away from parents

First, the Australian white pretestant community removed aboriginal children away from their parents (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations). For their own salvation and material well-being, of course.

Secondly, the Argentine right-wing dictatorship during the Dirty War implemented Operation Condor, the forced disappearance of political opponents (the Disaparecidos that you hear about in music and the movies). "Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained"

I'm sure others can cite more examples of state-sponsored child removal. Anyway, it's doesn't do anyone much honor to be repulsed by a 1984 world while at the same time disregarding actual history.

TRiG

9:05 AM

@justbelieve Oh, true. This is hardly a case in which Christians' hands are clean.

wax eagle

10:29 AM

@PaulA.Clayton interesting

TRiG

11:51 AM

> A short while ago, someone linked to an article where a Calvinist preacher was stating that God's mercy, love and patience are enshrined in the fact that the Reprobate are granted a short stay on Earth instead of just automatically going to Hell at the instant of creation.

> His mercy is in not torturing them immediately and in letting the Elect see them for their disgusting vileness so they could be assured that, yes, they did deserve to be tortured for eternity and how merciful God must be not to just torture everyone for all eternity instead of just 99% of the population.

> It's safe to say there are a lot of people who don't really understand the idea of mercy. At all.

AnonymousSam, comments on Slacktivist

justbelieve

12:14 PM

@TRiG Does this preacher have privileged access to children's minds via confession, youth groups, sermons and the cloth of authority?

TRiG

12:47 PM

@justbelieve I dunno. See the indent, and the attribution? This is a quotation. I don't know whom the preacher concerned was.

justbelieve

1:03 PM

@TRiG It was a rhetorical question. And Disqus doesn't seem to load. And without the link to the original article there's little left to "disqus"...

Does Elisha speak?

1:27 PM

2

Q: What, exactly is a "Pastoral Advice" question?

Last night while reviewing questions, I came across one that, to me, screamed "Pastoral Advice question - this person should be speaking to a Pastor - in person - not a group of strangers on the Internet." I voted to close and left the following comment: This question falls under the categor...

discussion

TRiG

3:24 PM

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice

wax eagle

@TRiG we gotta get you some more rep man :)

Does Elisha speak?

0

Q: VTC as a duplicate doesn't really work on a mobile phone

So, when I try to VTC as a duplicate on a mobile phone, it is very difficult to complete the process. Clicking on the question often links to the duplicate, and scrolling to find the 'Vote to Make a duplicate' is problemmatic at best. Is there a way, that on mobile phones, the click throughs co...

bug

wax eagle

Question I'd most like mod candidates to weigh in on that I won't be posting anywhere but in chat:

"What will you do to attract responsible, quality Jehovah's Witness contributors to this site?"

svidgen

3:47 PM

@waxeagle Answer my door next time?

wax eagle

@svidgen lol. If they ever come by I'm totally going to engage them with "Hey, look, I'm really happy where I'm at spiritually, but I've got an awesome opportunity for you, if you'd like to really reach people and can post non-plagiarized, non-spammy questions and answers on this website I'd really appreciate it"

svidgen

@waxeagle I kid you not, when I was a kid I was terrified of people coming up to our door. My mom would always freak out and scream, "hide! ... quick. get down! ... hide!"

wax eagle

@svidgen lol this sounds like some folks I know on halloween

svidgen

@waxeagle Hehe ... I think there's a point in the night where everyone pretends to be gone, despite there still being plenty of official trick-or-treating time left, and despite still having a large pile of candy. The point at which, if you have already, you stash your remains, set the empty bowl out, and write the "please take 1 note"

haven't already, that should read

wax eagle

lol

svidgen

4:01 PM

To your question though, I'm somewhat skeptical that any practicing JW's will participate on the site. My wife used to date an ex-JW. And while I'm not sure how representative his experience was of the JW lifestyle, he felt like he was entering an entirely new world. A world he'd been discouraged from entering. And now all his opinions of the JW's are probably jaded -- certainly nothing positive to say about them.

wax eagle

@svidgen yeah, that's basically what I've heard from anyone with experience with them

TRiG

4:36 PM

@waxeagle Hmm. I could try some relatives. A few months ago I was told a couple of the local elders wanted a chat with me, and I said I'd talk to them about this site. Then I put it off because I was busy, and I've never heard from them since.

wax eagle

@TRiG We'd welcome quality honest contributions from them. They are a relatively large group for us not to have any quality contributors from them

wax eagle

7:27 PM

If y'all see anything amiss please go ahead and hit the spam/offensive flag button

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