MarkTrapp, Caleb & Dancek on respectful questions

dancek

Oct 8, 2011 18:58

I'm willing to edit christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3947/… in any way

I didn't mean it to be a who-is-a-Christian question, nor did I realize it would be awfully broad

I'll at least make a second question of my comment...

Caleb

Oct 8, 2011 19:21

Does anybody have any guesses why my last three questions might all have gotten downvotes? They are a little different genre but were inspired by my recent thinking about what would be better here than on BH.

@dancek I'm going to take a stab at getting that past Mark :) Stand back! I'm going to try science.

dancek

Oct 8, 2011 19:44

@Caleb Ok, thanks! Btw I forked the comment to christianity.stackexchange.com/q/3956/60

@Caleb I think they're good ones. I can't think of a reason to downvote them.

Caleb

@dancek see my edit:

2

Q: How is freemasonry related to Christianity?

One of our local priests is also a freemason. This has caused some controversy. He himself has stated it's just a hobby, but others have contended that they are two incomparable faiths. First of all, does freemasonry itself make a claim of being inherently Christian? Secondly, as a society they...

freemasonry

dancek

@Caleb looks good to me! Technically no one I know has called Freemasonry a "faith", but if that's ok with Mark that's ok with me.

Caleb

@dancek I know lots of Christians that consider it a faith (and renounce it as such) but the typical answer that I have heard from them is that it is NOT a faith, invalidating Mark's claim of equivalence with self-professing Christian groups.

dancek

@Caleb it's definitely problematic to say what Freemasonry is and what it isn't (with all the secrecy). As I understand it, there are different levels of masons, so one might be a member and still have the wrong idea of what it's about.

Even worse, there are all kinds of claimed secret manuals and such floating around, the authenticity of which is difficult to know.

Caleb

Oct 8, 2011 20:01

@dancek Ya I've known Masons all my life literally since I was a few years old to the present) and don't understand it a bit. My family has even benefited from them immensely (I have two sisters that were born a medical issue that needed special surgery and a hospital they sponsor took care of it pro-bono). Still I can say that straight across the board they all saw their allegiance first to Masonry and (for the once that claimed to be Christian at all) second to Christ. And lived that way.

TRiG

@Caleb I don't think they're very active around here. There is one building in town with the compass and dividers over the door, but I don't think it's still a Masonic Lodge.

user2334

@Caleb @dancek The edits are better, but I don't see it being substantively different than a question like this

user2334

"How does Mormonism relate to Christianity?" "One of the people in my community is also a Mormon. This has caused some controversy. He himself has said it's not a big deal, but others have contended that they are incompatible with Christians. Does Mormonism itself make a claim to being inherently Christian?"

user2334

That'd be not constructive. I don't see why making the question about Freemasons (or any other group) makes it any better

dancek

@MarkTrapp I just think this is a good SE question if any. It's an actual problem faced in my community but still not too localized. It's not about whether the person is Christian (he certainly is) but whether it's a good thing he's a Freemason -- if there's no need to be afraid of Freemasonry then there isn't, and it's shown to be FUD in answers. And some of my friends are panicing for no reason.

Caleb

Oct 8, 2011 20:07

@MarkTrapp Them not claiming to be Christian makes them quite different than Mormons for one thing. In fact as your answer shows they don't even claim to be a religion. Secondly the edit asks for THEIR view, not "the different views on...."

dancek

(reminder: something should be done about the question Mark linked to; possibly delete)

@MarkTrapp Like @Caleb said, Freemasons aren't a religion, nor do they call themselves Christian. I think it's closer to compare freemasons to soldiers than to Mormons.

user2334

@dancek One of the facets of the six guidelines is that questions need to have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone, that we're all here to learn from each other. Setting the tone from the outset to be "Freemasons seem really secretive and we're not really sure if we should trust someone who claims to be one" solicits answers like the now-deleted one

user2334

The question itself as it's been revised is fine; my only concern now is the tone in which it is asked

dancek

@MarkTrapp I think the secrecy is irrelevant, so we can edit that out. It's just that I know nothing of Freemasonry, so I can't claim to know anything about it.

Caleb

@dancek Done.

user2334

Oct 8, 2011 20:15

@dancek I think you can ask a question without prefacing it with a presupposition about the answer. Stack Exchange isn't really designed to alleviate fears, but to provide answers to specific questions. What does "My priest being a mason has caused some controversy" and "Freemasonry seems quite secretive" add to the understanding of how to answer the question?

dancek

@MarkTrapp actually in this case, he didn't claim to be one but rather was found in a leaked member list, and when asked about confirmed that he's a member. I think stating this fact would have even further set the tone...

@MarkTrapp my priest being a mason is what makes it a real problem, so I thought basing the question on that would be good wrt SE standards.

@MarkTrapp I edited the mention of secrecy out.

user2334

@dancek I think the problem is prima facie apparent, but what about "I recently found out that my priest is a Freemason, but I'm not exactly sure what that means or how it relates to Christianity"?

dancek

@MarkTrapp I think I see what you mean... so basically leave out the mention that there are people who see Freemasonry and Christianity as incompatible.

user2334

Yeah, exactly

user2334

To be fair, there are a lot of questions that include that type of info upfront, but since we're talking about this question anyway...

user2334

Oct 8, 2011 20:24

I just think Christianity.SE is better off if we stick to questions that just ask for the facts rather than ask to confirm/deny suspicions

dancek

@MarkTrapp true.

user2334

@dancek @Caleb Appreciate you guys being so reasonable and amenable: used to going for several rounds about stuff like this on Programmers :P

Caleb

@MarkTrapp Yes there are. Loads of them. Do you seriously think it's practical to censor every mention of disagreement/scandal as not-constructive? I thought we'd basically settled that questions about our differences were fine as long as they didn't mis-represent anybody, mis-use the site definition of Christian or address each-other disrespectfully.

@MarkTrapp Thanks. We're trying. We don't have this figured out yet but we're trying to set a good example :)

dancek

@MarkTrapp thanks. I made another edit; what do you think?

user2334

@Caleb I would consider classifying a group of people as being secretive and finding out someone being a part of that group a controversy somewhat disrespectful of Freemasons. I know they've spent a great amount of effort trying to shed that image. Freemasons being something to fear has been the rationale for a ton of persecution.

user2334

Oct 8, 2011 20:31

@dancek Looks good to me!

dancek

@MarkTrapp nice!

user2334

@Caleb And I don't think it's censorship. The current version hasn't removed anything necessary to answer the question.

Caleb

@MarkTrapp Ok. For a question I'll give you that. I did the same kind of edit removing the controversial news case from a recent question because it didn't actually need to be there to ask the question.

However if an answer to one of these questions about freemasonry (or similar) respectfully explains how their being secretive is an issue for Christianity, I think we have to allow that. If we can't give honest answers that point out differences and even incompatibilities as seen by specific viewpoints we aren't going to do ANYBODY justice around here.

user2334

@Caleb Oh, yeah of course. The recourse for that is down-voting or supplying your own answer anyway. I'm very much not in favor of deleting answers that answer the question just because someone doesn't like it

Caleb

@MarkTrapp Alright then I think we're in agreement on this one. Thanks for stopping by.

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