My last question (now deleted) was very unpopular, the main reason seeming to be that it was unclear as a Christianity question as it was about God being infinite and all good things being perfected endlessly in the being of God. I thought this was an accepted part of our faith...but, as it's not...
@TheFreemason Yeah, it's a polling question, but I have seen those work, in the right context, on the English site successfully. As a member that has a close vote, I would rather that it be left open because it is not offensive, will not elicit offensive responses, is not trivial, and is a common circumstance that many Christians see.
I do agree that it can be reworded to cut out the wiccan parts. You can suggest an edit if your up for it.
@TheFreemason Who wrote this message. The transcript shows @TheFreemason . The stared message list shows @DanAndrews . What's going on here?
And the reply script says The Freemason.
@JamesT What does this mean for some of the churches in Scotland? Will some of them be required to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples if they are asked?
ON A DIFFERENT NOTE:
We had quite a few issues with <user redacted> in the past and I noticed that he is now actively posting and commenting again. Hopefully, he will do well this time and get along with everyone, but it would be good to check up on him every now and then if any of the long time, high rep users care or think about it.
Public Service Announcement The prayer room is a room for praying, not a room for dropping off prayer request topics to the attention of others. Address God directly yourself or <there is no option b>.
@TheFreemason Your flag was a suggestion for how the question should be edited. I declined it using the stock "flags are for things that require moderator intervention" reason because it is not the job of moderators to fix all the questions, you have edit privs on the site as well as I do and instead of making me do it you could constructively contribute yourself.
@fredsbend I took the liberty of editing your chat message to redact the link to the users profile as a reminder of some SE norms that we try to play by.
Namely, that issues should primarily be dealt with in relation to specific content and instances. We try not to make it about problem people but do deal with problem behavior. On an instance by instance basis.
I agree 'that user' has a hard time figuring out and playing by the rules and isn't doing so hot again, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to draw focus to him as a user.
By all means flag any and every instance on the site of inappropriate behavior or content, but do it in the normal course of using the site. Stalking his profile and encouraging others to do that isn't helpful.
And believe me, mods do notice when a user's posts keep hitting the flag queue. In fact there are some flags that are auto-raised for repeat problem trends. One on the few things that falls completely to mods (for better or worse) is when to make the judgement call to take some action with the user rather than playing whack-a-mole with their activity. The community has a lot of self moderation power, but taking a user aside and dealing with an overall trends is one mods have to do.
Does that make sense? We try to step in before anybody becomes really problematic, but we also give them enough rope to hang themselves with if that makes any sense. We er an the side of giving people plenty of instruction and reminders about what is expected before we escalate something to dealing with them as a user rather than the specific instances of behavior.
I noticed that my reps had been lowered and when I checked my profile there were several of my answers which had been removed and reps deducted, and so I wonder what policy requires that and why?
for the same reason that schools close on snowy days, they care deeply about the safety of their members and don't want them to take unnecessary risks.
@fredsbend They're the same user. If you go to The Freemason's profile and check out the Stack Overflow account that it's linked to, you'll see Dan Andrews. Other sites have different names and avatars, but they're all the same user.
@Anonymous Depending on where you are, a lot of folks don't traditionally go to church on Christmas, it's often a Christmas Eve thing. But yeah, if there is snow on Christmas, and you're in an area that doesn't handle snow well (like where I live), there is a good chance that any planned services would be cancelled.
@Anonymous not all the time. Snow is at least a possibility as far south as Florida's panhandle, and really even further. I've woken to a white Christmas on Galveston Island in the gulf.
I think Christians operate in two modes: missionary mode and academic mode. Missionary mode is often biased and confusing; academic mode is clear, concise, rational, and tolerant.
@Caleb Yes, I see how you guys work and you do well. Personally, there are about four users that I check up on two or three times a week. I try to find opportunities to positively affect them and change their behavior. It seems to be working with one user. The others I'm not sure yet.
I think it is a legitimate strategy to helping troublesome users.
@Anonymous they are both designed for the same purpose, to evangelize, they just appeal to different people, different ways of thought and different mindsets (note that design here is less of an intentional "design" but more of an informal "this is what they're trying to do)
@fredsbend The only thing I'll say is to be careful that you're not targeting specific users in a negative way. We want interactions to be post level for the most part and things to be evaluated independent of the author. Obviously this isn't possible all the time, but that's the ideal
@Caleb I understand, I was attempting to flag the question as offtopic with potential help. Next time, I'll just post it off topic.
@fredsbend, you don't have to have the same username for all SE/SO accounts. I prefer to be identified as "TheFreemason" here. On boards that my real name means something to someone - such as people I work with - I use my real name - for better or worse.
Why the chat for Christianity.SE uses my name and not my Christianity.SE handle, I'm not sure... I guess it's because it's the generic SE account.
@waxeagle Ah, cool, I didn't know what "Info" was for in the upper right corner above the avatars. From there you can change your parent user (for those who may be reading this chat). Thanks.
@fredsbend No church will be required to do this. There was some talk in Parliament and elsewhere about whether any extra safeguard was needed, but the basic situation is that existing law on religious freedom suffices.
Some churches want to perform same-sex weddings, and now they can.
(Well, once the legislation takes effect.)
A non-obvious nuance is the idea for individual celebrants to be licensed, vs. the denomination more broadly, in cases where the overall church is anti but some individuals are pro. The Act says that individuals cannot be licensed if their parent religious body has not requested it.
This is because the discipline and structure of the church is inseparable from its doctrine. Governmental override of Presbyterian polity (say) would be unacceptable, and in the case of the Church of Scotland, unconstitutional. Albeit it would take a long, painful and expensive court case to find out.
@JamesT This is good. I know it is a concern for many against gay marriage. How petty are the Scots with lawsuits? Might we see a gay couple suing a church over refusing them marriage? I would bet it would eventually happen in the USA. With the right judge they might rule in favor of the couple. Similar things have happened in the US.
@Anonymous San Jacinto I think identifies as Lutheran, but he doesn't participate much. He last logged in 18 hours ago so I guess he reads and maybe votes. I answered a Lutheran question of his about this time last year.
I'm not an expert, but I have casually studied some of their stuff.
Also attended services for a year or two when I was a child.
@DanAndrews I knew that, I just didn't realize that Dan Andrews and The Freemason were the same person. Now that I think about it, I have always seen Dan Andrews in chat but never on the site and The Freemason on the site but never in chat until yesterday.
You have also gone by "Freemason the Satirist", right?
@fredsbend interestingly the US courts have been pretty good about allowing churches to discriminate. there was an interesting ADA suit last year that the SCOTUS ruled in favor of the church on
@fredsbend oh, we can be petty, don't worry about that. But the new law itself IIRC is pretty clear. Let me just check the language.
"Nothing in [the section about licensing] (a) imposes a duty on any religious or belief body to [ask to be allowed to marry same-sex couples]; (b) imposes a duty on any such body to nominate under section 9 any of its members to be registered as empowered to solemnise marriages between persons of the same sex; (c) imposes a duty on any person to apply for temporary authorisation under section 12 to solemnise marriages between persons of the same sex; (d) imposes a duty on any person who is an approved celebrant in relation to marriages between persons of the same sex to solemnise such marri…
ie, you can't force the church to apply in general (and the government may not say yes), or to register any of its ministers specifically, and even if someone is on the register, they still don't have to carry out a marriage
this is in addition to existing law about freedom of religion
One might be able to mount a human rights challenge on the basis of right to a family life etc., and argue that only a wedding in St Bumble's Church is good enough. I do not think that would succeed (and I'm not a lawyer) but it might take a while to find out.
This was in the recent debate and I think the additional protective amendment didn't succeed. Online bill text is only from stage 2 though. I don't know what the status is.
I work for a small company and using a site to find a new employee is new to me. I have just hired people I knew in the past, but this position requires a knowledge set that no one I know has.
I posted on Craigslist and am not getting enough qualified responses. I looked at monster and spokanehe...
I noticed that my reps had been lowered and when I checked my profile there were several of my answers which had been removed and reps deducted, and so I wonder what policy requires that and why?
