The Upper Room

5:50 AM

@CiscoIPPhone That is pretty common practice in Judaism. It's not universally accepted as a mandate but quite a few folks take it as an extension of not pronouncing the name of God.

BeatMe

12:58 PM

@caleb, if you don't mind I would like to learn your view on some things, do you join me in the creationism chat?

Jonathon Byrd

3:48 PM

boy these questions are starting to get real dull

Caleb

@JonathonByrd No joke. There are some outstanding ones that could use some love tho. Want to take a crack at the fear of God? <hint>

Caleb

4:12 PM

@Flimzy @ElendiaStarman @Richard Is this version any better?

0

Q: Has Christianity ever come down in opposition of arranged marriages?

Many cultures in many ages have practiced arranged marriages. I understand that in Jewish culture --at about the time of Christ-- arranged marriages were considered a normal way of life. Obviously if this was a religious value at the time Christianity probably had an opinion about it. Somehow tod...

Caleb

4:41 PM

@HedgeMage (or anybody else with a suggestion) I rejected an edit on this question and it didn't go over so well. Anything I should have done differently? Time for comment cleanup?

@Flimzy: Apparently he wasn't looking for anything. Just had the one question and doesn't need rep?

We have a user on U&L that has earned probably 2k rep from questions and dumped all of it on bounties. He asks notoriously bad questions and survives on rep from the rare interesting ones, which he dumps into bounties to get the other ones answered.

El'endia Starman

5:08 PM

@Caleb Yes, that's a better way to phrase it.

Sklivvz

@caleb, what went wrong in your edit were your comments, not the rejection. While I merely disagree with your rejection, I feel your style of commenting is not helping the site. Think about it - the question is a huge straw man, and can easily be reworded to be more neutral. I do think that this site needs a lot of input by non Christians, otherwise it will quickly become dominated by people of a particular religion and not people with a particular expertise.

And too be clear, before your first comment my attitude was "meh, leave it" but after it was "what thhe flock?"

Richard

6:20 PM

@Caleb I'm neutral about the question from its original wording all the way to this. It seems a valid question. The only worry I have with it is how broad it is. Having said that, there might be an easy, concise answer. I'd have to (more or less) fully research the answer to know whether or not it's too broad. Outside of that, I think it's fine as it is--but I also think it was fine as it was.

All the meta answers seem to show that there are practically no restrictions on historical questions. And also this is something that I'm kind of curious about myself.

Since I can't see the original comments, I'm unable to understand the original opposition to it (other than my own worries about the broadness of the question). So, to me it seems fine.

Caleb

6:43 PM

@Sklivvz I'm sorry you didn't like my comment. I'm a bit confused on what you expected however, just a reject with no explanation? I don't think that would have been constructive of me.

It's fairly accepted etiquette on SE sites to not make major edits that change the content/meaning of posts without first discussing it with the OP.

Your change included a viewpoint / question scope change. The best way to handle that if you think you have a constructive idea for how to make a question substantially better by changing it's nature is to take it to meta.

@Richard There was quite a collection of comments actually with a few suggestions that I used in the re-write. Honestly I'm not sure how big the scope of the question is either, but since I don't know the answer to this it's hard to ask any other way!

Sklivvz

7:45 PM

@caleb yes my edit made the question better. I don't see the problem, and it's usually ok. I would expect the OP to roll back, but anyways. I also know that it is good etiquette to leave a msg. I don't have a problem with the message but its contents and tone. You should be more careful in the future as a high rep user on such a young site... I am just telling you how it feels to be on the other side.

If a question portrays non believers inaccurately, this is not good for this site, which I believe must strive more to be balanced in its tone. Alienating the non believers would be extremely bad for this community.

Flimzy

Wow, I just got an onslaught of downvotes

I gained -5 rep since I last logged on

Sklivvz

It seems to me that in any case "how to answer..." questions are off topic, and I may bring that up in meta. They are not questions about Christianity, but about a topic of general interest to Christians.

Caleb

@Sklivvz If you are interesting in issues of balance, tone and contents, this question could use some edit attention. I promise not to reject suggested edits.

@Sklivvz Most SE sites aim to attract questions that relevant experts are interested in answering. The weight is on the what people want to answer. If nobody wants to answer nobody is forced to and those kind of things die a natural death. This is not an evangelism site, so the focus really isn't on keeping it relevant to non-christians. The idea is for people to ask what they personally need to know about and answer where they have an interest and the expertise.

@dancek: Is this better?

Flimzy

8:05 PM

@Caleb: I like the new marriage question much better. I even felt like answering this one!

Caleb

@Flimzy I got a whole spat of them last night but I think they got erased sometime today. I wouldn't worry about it. If you get constructive comments fine, otherwise we all know that there be trolls.

Flimzy

@Skivvz: In your mind what would make my 'who created God' answer better? I think a short answer is called for in that case... and short != bad

@Sklivvz: Would some scripture suggesting that God is non-changing would be sufficient

Wikis At Area 51

@Caleb i just posted a note saying I thought your rephrasing is still too wide (you just got back to me).

@Caleb I have about 3 mins now if you want to discuss. Otherwise will catch up again another time.

Sklivvz

@fli I would suggest you go through your line of thought step by step. Using the Bible as reference is fine but not essential IMHO. It is just not that obvious what you mean by God is unchanging, and why does that make Him uncreated.

Flimzy

@Sklivvz: I've added a couple points--with scripture. Let me know if you think it still needs more work.

El'endia Starman

8:19 PM

@Flimzy: Your answer would be even better if you included a reference to Kalam's Cosmological Argument.

Flimzy

@ElendiaStarman: I don't think I know what that is.

Sklivvz

@cal I disagree that question has issues. I therefore can't improve it -- please note that I'm the OP :)

El'endia Starman

Kalām cosmological argument

The Kalām cosmological argument is a variation of the cosmological argument that argues for the existence of a personal First Cause for the universe. Its origins can be traced to medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers, but most directly to Islamic theologians of the Kalām tradition. Its historic proponents include John Philoponus, Al-Kindi, Saadia Gaon, Al-Ghazali, and St. Bonaventure. A prominent contemporary western proponent is William Lane Craig. The basic premise of all of these is that something caused the Universe to begin to exist, and this First Cause must be God. It is a...

Flimzy

@Sklivvz: I don't buy that reasoning (I don't nkow which question you're talking about)... I don't think my answer has issues, but I'm still willing to work on improving it.

Wikis At Area 51

@Caleb, guess you're no longer here, no problem will catch you another time.

Flimzy

8:22 PM

@Sklivvz: IOW, agreeing that there are issues is not necessary for working to improve something.

3

Q: Would the story of Jesus hold more significance if he was a man like us?

I feel that whatever Jesus did, if it is because He is special (the son of God in a way that I am not - because aren't we all God's children?) then it holds little relevance to my life - because it is something I can not strive for or live by because I am not special. However, if He was a man no...

jesus

I can't decide if I should down-vote this question for having a faulty premise...

Or upvote it, because it's probably a common question that needs to be answered

Caleb

@Flimzy Or leave it alone and just answer it :)

@Flimzy I don't think we can knock the faulty premise thing for people who generally don't know and came to learn.

Flimzy

@Caleb: I guess you're right that my answer doesn't really address the historical question... should I delete my answer?

I suppose my reading of Mason's answer got me thinking on the Biblical track...

Caleb

If it turns out it's a troll question with a deliberate false premise just trying to stir the mud up, we can probably object, but this doesn't feel that way.

@Flimzy I don't know. Probably since it's not technically an answer. I thought about asking THAT question too, but haven't yet. I've been trying to catch up on editing.

Flimzy

The title of the question leaves room for Biblical answers

I think my answer is close enough to on topic for the title...

Caleb

@Flimzy I would argue that "could != has" and the history tag should help, but I grant most people are going to have a hard time NOT trying to take it that way.

Flimzy

8:33 PM

but the question itself seems to be more about cultural history

An ideal answer would probably include Biblical and historical evidence.

The Biblical part is the easy one to answer... which is why I did. hehe

Caleb

8:55 PM

Good afternoon @waxeagle. You're fashionably late.

@WikisAtArea51 Sorry I missed you ... maybe tomorrow.