@Dan As I read your post, I want to remind you that this is very much a beta site. Conversations and disagreements about site scope is to be expected. And it should not surprise us if the community changed it's mind over time. This is precisely the goal of having a beta period.

However, and this is a problem that several sites, perhaps even all mature sites, we must avoid any hint of excluding people rather than content.

@JonEricson yup, beta sites are by definition in flux. Do note, though, that the community did have consensus on the doctrine issue, and there's no clear evidence that it ever changed its mind. There's been some drift, combined with some personnel changes (you were a strong champion of keeping things pluralistic and polite), but drift != policy change. We've lost our way, and it's time to get it back.

I starred your chat item because it's important. But I strongly reject the idea that we must decide "what doctrines are always welcome vs. those that are not". I believe that doctrine relates to people and not a mere logical framework. We cannot reject doctrine because we cannot reject people.

@JonEricson we can reject doctrine as off-topic in the same way that we reject anything else as off-topic. That's nothing against the people but about scope.

@MonicaCellio We can reject dogmatism (that's what our "What are we looking for in answers?" meta-question does), but that's not doctrine.

Doctrine is a cultural understanding of a text. If we reject doctrine, we are left with individual interpretations alone. You really don't want that.

@JonEricson when I say "doctrine" I mean "unsupported assertions of truth (in this case religious)". What do you mean by it?

No, definitely don't want individual interpretation; we already get too much of the touchy-feely "well I think it means this" stuff here.

@MonicaCellio That's dogmatism.

@JonEricson ok.

I honestly thought we could remove doctrine and we could be left with individual interpretation. But events show that's not possible. As people come to the site they bring their cultural backgrounds. (And that's good.)

What we don't want is anyone to stand up and say my culture has the truth and all others are false (even if it happens to be true).

@JonEricson agreed -- no truth assertions.

(That happens in more subtle ways, however.)

@MonicaCellio Well... a pluralistic society must learn to handle those as well.

@JonEricson yes, things like "our lord and savior" and "his holy precious blood" and the like. We need to be able to fix those too.

@MonicaCellio Wait. Are those wrong?

@JonEricson handle != condone. We aren't a free-for-all where anybody is allowed to say anything. Readers need thick skins but posters need to be polite, or be edited.

@JonEricson yes they are, and I thought you had said as much at some point. They are presumptuous; "our" on a community where not everybody agrees is presumptuous, exclusive, and (whether intended or not) rude.

@MonicaCellio That's a dangerous game to play. There are better solutions.

But while those are problems, they aren't the biggest problems.

@JonEricson such as?

@MonicaCellio That's a long way from saying that others are wrong.

@MonicaCellio Downvoting.

@JonEricson they are assertions of truth. But as I said, it's a second-order problem.

@MonicaCellio Every sentence that ends in a period is an assertion of truth.