The Upper Room - 2012-09-17

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4:15 AM

Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: Left Behind and Loving It!

Peter Turner on September 17, 2012

Not that I’m an especially cool guy, but according to society, I am a little strange. I got married at 21 while still in college, never lived with my wife beforehand, we had a baby while still in college, and now we’ve got two more. Furthermore, if you see me coming down the street, you’ll see my license plate says “Faith Hope and Love” and I’ve got pictures of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Jude dangling from my rear view mirror where most similarly bearded gentlemen keep lusty nudes. So, sometimes, people ask, “Peter, what’s your story?” an …

12 hours later…

3:45 PM

Do we have a meta-post about "What does the Bible say about X?" questions?

3:57 PM

@JonEricson at least one, if not a couple, lemmie look

meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/760/… is semi canonical

old though

also meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/816/… also old

@waxeagle Oh thanks. I'll look there first before I write a rant. ;-)

@JonEricson there is a legit rant to be written about that style of question. Most fo them have some kind of agenda

our original reform stance was that you had to frame them doctrinally, and this is still the ideal case. However, the doctrinal frame stance has pretty much been abandoned because it was driving off good new content

@waxeagle Tough nut to crack. I thought the doctrinal stance was helpful. But it seems to have resulted in tacking on "under Reformed Theology" to the end of random questions. :-(

@waxeagle I miss Richard. :-(

4:12 PM

@JonEricson yes, and that's not useful

@JonEricson same here

4:42 PM

hi

@Jin hello!

@waxeagle hello there. you're everywhere :)

@Jin :)

El'endia Starman

@Jin Hey, I'm everywhere too! :P

@Jin Welcome, oh bearer of good news. (I hope. ;-)

4:44 PM

yes, i come with some good news.

El'endia Starman

@Jin Oooh, what is this good news, sire?

some lil birds from our community team told me that Christianity.se site is ready to graduate. That's why I'm here.

7

El'endia Starman

@Jin YES! Wooo!

Normally I'd do the design on my own first, then present it to the community on Meta.

However, this will be a challenging design for me, that's why I'm giving you a heads up. I may make a Meta post for designing suggestions.

@Jin We have very strong iconography. Strong and divisive. :-(

4:47 PM

@JonEricson that divisive part is what is going to make this so dadgum challenging

@JonEricson I think the challenging part for me at least, is to give this community its own visual branding, reflecting Christianity, but not to be overly cliched.

I had the same challenge with the Judaism design

But their community users helped me a great deal.

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Yeah. Of all symbols, the cross would be the least divisive, but some small Christian groups reject its use for various reasons.

@El'endiaStarman We can't very well use a stake (or steak ;-).

what about the chi-rho?

is that less divisive?

@Jin Which is excellent.

4:50 PM

I'll make a meta post later this afternoon to get the design conversation started.

@Jin cool, thanks!

I still have another site to launch before the Christianity site, so we have plenty time to brain storm.

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle I don't know, actually. However, it IS less well-known.

@Jin cool

less cliche as well

@waxeagle It has ancient roots, I believe.

4:51 PM

@JonEricson yes, it's one of the first Christograms

user image

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle That's true. We'd likely want to have a question and an easily-found link for all the people who come to the site and go "what is that?".

is a favorite depiction

@El'endiaStarman yes that would be a good idea

(side note, this particulars symbol has personal meaning to me, as it was the symbol of my hall in college, and I'm likely getting a tattoo of it at some point)....

19

Q: What should our logo and site design look like?

It may be too early to be thinking about this, or perhaps there's not much interest in it, but the look and feel of the site is almost (but not quite) as important, albeit subconsciously, as the content itself, certainly to first-time visitors. There are always elements of personal preference in...

i just found that post.

@Jin go ahead and go for a new one IMO.

@waxeagle will do.

4:54 PM

3

A: What should our logo and site design look like?

We now have good graphic designers at our disposal, so let's take what the symbol of Christianity originally should have been: Not the cross, but the empty tomb.

Good luck drawing an empty tomb!

2

"Early Christians felt the empty tomb was too difficult to draw." It's a challenge for modern day designers as well :)

I'm a fan of:

3

A: What should our logo and site design look like?

Just to throw out another suggestion, the Triquetra might work. It commonly represents the Holy Trinity. Much like other Christian symbols, it has been used to represent things other than Christianity. I think it differs from The Cross and The Fish in that fewer people know about it (sorry, no re...

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle I was just thinking about the Triquetra too. Especially since I often doodle it when I need to stay awake in a class.

@El'endiaStarman @waxeagle I like that very much, visually.

@El'endiaStarman and not unimportantly, it will look good on a t-shirt :)

4:57 PM

it looks like a celtic knot to me

(not sure if that's an appropriate comparison).

El'endia Starman

@Jin It is. Which is another reason it's attractive to me.

@Jin yes, it's of celtic origin

El'endia Starman

Well, Celtics were one of those groups that heavily incorporated Christianity into their society.

@El'endiaStarman yup

I'm a huge fan of Celtic arts.

4:59 PM

like most symbols, we'll have to fight the neo-pagans for it, but it's got good fairly universal meaning in the Christian church

this is a great start. I'd much rather to use this than a Cross. Nothing wrong with the Cross of course, but it's just over-used everywhere.

Same reason I didn't use the Star of David for the Judaism site.

@Jin yes very overused. as is the fish

El'endia Starman

(This is related, hence why I'm posting it:)

user image

no crosses, no fishes, and sure as heck no fishes with crosses for eyes

3

5:01 PM

@waxeagle It excludes non-Trinitarian folks. (Whether that's good or bad, I won't say.)

@JonEricson well, we're going to offend someone with anything we do.

@waxeagle Alpha and Omega are very early symbols (Revelation) that aren't over-used.

@JonEricson yes. I'm a fan.

@waxeagle Tru dat. If we are going to offend, let's offend with style. ;-)

El'endia Starman

@Jin That's awesome. I have a new doodling method now! Thanks for sharing! :)

5:10 PM

@El'endiaStarman i love combining geometry and art together :)

El'endia Starman

@Jin Me too! I myself was inspired to start doing mathematical doodles by Vi Hart, in fact.

@El'endiaStarman I did this drawing in high school, back when i was obsessed with MC Escher style. It was mostly geometry.

I think I posted it online somewhere, let me find it..

twitpic.com/5j7adk twitpic.com/5j7bcz

El'endia Starman

@Jin Wooooaaaahhhhh...that's way beyond anything I've done.

...that's why you're the graphic designer and not me. :P

@El'endiaStarman thanks. I gained a whole new appreciation for Escher once I started mimicking his style. tessellation and division of plane is really really difficult to do. It's a lot of math involved.

El'endia Starman

@Jin Oh yes. I remember there was a point last year where I had that click moment of understanding what underlies Escher's tessellations. Didn't do anything fancy with it though. At least, not yet.

Oh yeah, this was a short trend in my doodling:

user image

@Jin I see the Penrose triangle in the middle. That's a favorite of mine. Three of my more advanced uses of it are here, there and elsewhere.

5:42 PM

@jin one important thing about Christian Symbols is that they go outwards, so if you go for something like El'endia's doodles, try not to make them look like a snake devouring it's tail

El'endia Starman

@PeterTurner Ha, good point! :P

>

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint alw…

GK Chesterton - Orthodoxy Ch 8

IMO, Crazy bones would be an excellent design element.

El'endia Starman

@PeterTurner Oooh, how about the valley filled with dry bones in Ezekiel 37?

@El'endiaStarman I love the Penrose triangle. In fact I designed our Math site's logo based off it

@El'endiaStarman As long as they're recognizably crazy.

El'endia Starman

5:50 PM

@Jin Ah, cool! I saw the similarity in terms of being "impossible", but didn't know that the Penrose triangle was the inspiration.

user image

I like the Gideon's (hotel Bible-fame) logo:

El'endia Starman

@Jin Sweet.

@JonEricson too evocative of the Unitarian flaming chalice

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Even more obscure than the Triquetra as well. ;P

5:53 PM

@waxeagle Can't get the image to load.

@jon I saw it for a second.

there we go

user image

my concern ^

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Huh, haven't seen that before.

@waxeagle I get "Image not found". Oh well.

@JonEricson :(

5:56 PM

What is that, and why is it of concern?

are you at work?

@El'endiaStarman that's the symbol for the Unitarian Universalists

@waxeagle Yeah. I get a lot of blocked pages.

user image

There we go!

What I like about the image is that it has a clear meaning (in Judges) and also looks striking.

But I agree the flame (especially on it's own) is not a great idea.

And we ought not steal others' logos. ;-)

Still gotta plug for the cross the symbols ought err in the side of New Testament / actual (traditional) Christian Church.

Hmm. If we're having trouble agreeing on a site logo, let's move back a step and ask if a site logo is truly necessary.

@MasonWheeler Good point, we don't even have favicons anymore

But, there's going to be something on the SE.com site.

6:00 PM

Because finding something that all branches of Christianity will find acceptable is going to be tricky, and we want the site to be a place where all branches of Christianity can feel welcome.

> I think we should have smiling people! That's always a good start, they'll know we are Christians by our love.

One of the few generally upvoted statements I've made on Meta.

@MasonWheeler Maybe if we use all the symbols, we could be inclusive?

@JonEricson hang on, there is an image for that

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Oooh, what if we interleaved the symbols?

then what you'd end up with is a really messy collage :P

6:03 PM

user image

user image

It might be inclusive, but it would also look kind of ugly

@MasonWheeler It's also inclusive of rather more than Christianity.

Which I don't believe is the idea.

El'endia Starman

Hmmm. Is there any Christian-specific version of Coexist?

@waxeagle Wasn't that in the Lost finale?

6:04 PM

I'll cast what minor vote I have (I'm not a Christian, and don't even really consider myself a member of the Christianity SE community) for Alpha and Omega.

@JonEricson honestly not sure, and it wasn't even the image I'm thinking of, just grabbed a top pick from "religious pluralism"

Hmm... what's the plain circle at the top supposed to represent?

Okay. Who objects to the cross? A. The Witnesses, because (a) they don't think Jesus died on a cross, and (b) they object to religious iconography in general. B. The Mormons, because they focus on Jesus' life, not death. Is that right? Anyone else?

Do the Mormons strongly object to the cross, or just not focus on it in their own iconography?

@TRiG Catholics because we think an empty cross is kinda lame.

Because if the Mormons don't mind the cross, the only objectors I know of would be the Witnesses, who are, to be honest, a fairly minor group.

6:07 PM

The latter. Mormons don't really have much in the way of iconography, not really because of a religious objection but because it just isn't seen as being all that important.

@PeterTurner But do you actually object to it, or just not use it much?

El'endia Starman

@TRiG And they haven't shown up in a good way at all on the site. Few of them and they tend to just copy-paste. We really need good JW contributors, but they're just not here. Yet.

@TRiG No, no objection, but it makes it a more apparently Protestant site

@PeterTurner Yeah. Tone is going to be complicated.

I know there are certain symbols I'm inclined to associate with "nasty Calvinists" (you know, the "You're all going to Hell!" rub hands gleefully type).

@TRiG I think avoiding the cross in general is actually good idea. It's seriously cliche

El'endia Starman

6:10 PM

...I'm so glad that this is a site frequented by (reasonably) mature users, 'cause can you imagine the sort of discussion that would result on a typical forum? :P

And that would include the fish symbol. No matter how old it is, or how inclusive it's supposed to be, they're the only ones I see using it.

@TRiG yes, and again, incredibly cliche

@TRiG "The lives of our people must become the most meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship." -- Gordon B. Hinckley, LDS prophet and President of the church

(It's also, I'm told, used on car bumper stickers. Religion as tribalism.)

@TRiG yes

6:12 PM

@waxeagle Well, as I said, I've never seen it used at all in Ireland, so I'm not a good judge of how cliché it is. I'd see it as American.

@El'endiaStarman Agreed. This community has turned out a lot more successful than I ever expected it would, and with minimal intervention from mods even. I'm kind of surprised at how few people we've had to toss out on their ears.

@TRiG to me it's the symbol of christian comercialism

@waxeagle Well, that's one to avoid, so.

@TRiG I'm a fan of traditional, but not overly used symbolism

@waxeagle How cliché are Alpha and Omega?

I'd guess they're fairly universal.

6:15 PM

@TRiG not as bad as other things, and right out of scripture so much less likely to offend

@TRiG I don't see it a lot, except for stuff from my fraternity.

I do like the idea of an AΩ symbol. That should be easily recognizable to anyone familiar with Christianity, and as far as I know it doesn't have any negative connotations to anyone.

@MasonWheeler An A over on the top left, and an Ω over on the top right.

1 hour ago, by wax eagle

user image

@TRiG Are you talking about the site header? I don't think I've seen any SE sites with a logo or icon on the top right

@waxeagle That's a bit complicated, and a lot of people are not going to recognize the chi-rho.

6:17 PM

@MasonWheeler Yeah. It's usually just something in the middle, isn't it.

@MasonWheeler that's probably true

@waxeagle Looks like a GIF made out of a dodgy JPEG.

heh

@TRiG yeah it looks kinda crappy, that's what I get for pulling things from google image search :P

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Doesn't matter given Jin's expertise.

6:19 PM

For how many people would the Trinitarian symbols be a problem?

If there are better ideas, people should be free to suggest them when we post a Meta post about this, but for the time being I think the best idea so far is just a simple AΩ.

@El'endiaStarman I know. Jin could redraw it easily. It's just an idea.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG That's basically a question of whether non-Trinitarians are more numerous than Mormons/JWs...

@El'endiaStarman Christadelphinas. Gnostics. Unitarians.

Or are Christadelphians a subset of Unitarians?

Nontrinitarianism

Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to monotheistic belief systems, primarily within Christianity, which reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, namely, the teaching that God is three distinct hypostases or persons and yet co-eternal, co-equal, and indivisibly united in one essence or ousia. According to churches that consider ecumenical council decisions final, trinitarianism was infallibly defined at the First Ecumenical Council (the Council of Nicaea) in 325 A.D. Nontrinitarians disagree with the findings of the Council for various reasons, including the belief that ...

there's a whole article on the subject, and a fairly big one too.

With twelve groups listed as modern nontrinitarians.

6:21 PM

@MasonWheeler I see, looks like you might lose the Jws too

> Modern nontrinitarian groups or denominations include Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, Friends General Conference, Iglesia ni Cristo, Members Church of God International, Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), La Luz del Mundo, Living Church of God, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarian Universalist Christians and the United Church of God.

Dawn Bible Students Association

The Dawn Bible Students Association is a legal entity used by a branch of the Bible Student Movement. It was founded with the intention of becoming a publishing house to begin printing and distributing the first six volumes of the Studies in the Scriptures series that were written by Charles Taze Russell which the Watchtower Society had officially ceased publishing in 1927. In 1966, the Dawn published 'Oh, the Blessedness', a small booklet which rejected most of Russell's views of Bible prophecy and end time predictions resulting in numerous internal divisions. History In 1928 Norman ...

Never heard of them before, but I guessed from the name that they might be related to the Witnesses in some way. I should learn more about the origins of the Witnesses and the various breakaway groups.

@TRiG So they're a schismatic offshoot of JWs? Interesting.

@MasonWheeler After C.T. Russell died, and Rutherford took over (and completely changed the direction of the organisation, and many of the beliefs, and the name), there were quite a few breakaway groups.

Many of the breakaways are in fact closer, in both name and beliefs, to the original Bible Students Association founded by Charles Taze Russell. But the Witnesses are the "official" descendants, because they're the biggest group, and the most visible, and they got the legal instruments.

El'endia Starman

......so...I'm looking at a picture of a good friend's henna tattoo, which he is considering making into a real tattoo some time in the future, that combines several elements into a very powerful and meaningful symbol, including the cross, heart, fire, and his family's symbol (which is itself a Christian-inspired symbol).

The publishing and printing corporations came with the Witnesses. The breakaway groups had to form new publishing corporations.

6:26 PM

@TRiG I see.

El'endia Starman

What if we used the Triquetra and put a heart at the top, that chi-rho AΩ symbol at one side, and a flame at the other?

I like what Jin did with the J.SE logo:

22

Q: Design for Mi Yodeya

Shalom! I'm Jin, I work on the designs for the Stack Exchange sites as they graduate from the beta phase. Each site will have its own unique theme that will reflect its topic and culture. However, all sites will share common elements so they feel like they're part of the Stack Exchange family. F...

discussion status-completed design

user image

City arms of Dublin: Three gates, aflame.

The flames represent intensity.

@TRiG Not a poor fire department. ;-)

@JonEricson I suspect it's rather older than the fire department. It's certainly considerably older than the state.

El'endia Starman

6:30 PM

@JonEricson Holy cow, I never noticed the Star of David in the logo before. Or the Hebrew letters as fruit.

@El'endiaStarman It's all sorts of goodness.

@El'endiaStarman I like the crowns for badges, but that was reverted because of objections from the community.

@El'endiaStarman Reminds me of:

16

Q: Is Knuth's 3:16 project unique?

Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated (A-R Editions, 1990). This is a tour of the Bible using the methodology of "stratified random sampling", where Knuth examines chapter 3, verse 16, of each Bible book (for which such a verse exists). Each one...

bible exegesis art

I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of visuals for Christianity. But not all have to be presented in the logo alone. We can use the motifs elsewhere on the site too.

El'endia Starman

@Jin That's true. Where else can the motifs be used? I can think of the logo, upvote/downvote/accept icons, badges...

@El'endiaStarman Possibly somewhere in the sidebar too?

@El'endiaStarman captcha/error/error images, footer, background texture/pattern, blockquote, sidebar decorations etc

6:36 PM

@El'endiaStarman Tags.

For example, on the Judaism site, the sidebar border treatment was inspired by the decorative borders found in Talmud.

El'endia Starman

@Jin So, basically anywhere you can modify with CSS, except text.

@El'endiaStarman yep.

IMO the best approach would be KISS. Look at StackOverflow. It's got a very simple interface without too much iconography, visuals or "motifs," and it looks great. Too much graphical stuff would just be "noise" and would distract from the questions and answers that are the point of the site.

of course, I try not to make the actual main Q&A content area too visually heavy, or it'd be distracting.

6:38 PM

@MasonWheeler I trust Jin to do a design without distracting.

the most "visual heavy" design I've done is probably rpg.se, but I feel the design is appropriate for the site's topic.

Both the "visually warm" Mi Yodeyea, and the very straightforward StackOverflow work well. Somewhere in the middle is English L&U, which I like very much.

@Jin I love how rich your Mi Yodeya design is. But it's hardly distracting. It fits the nature of that community well.

@JonEricson thanks! I had a lot of help from the mods and power users from that community, before I presented the final design on Meta. I plan to do the same with Christianity.se as well.

@Jin I'm on record in many places being completely in love with the RPG design, but completely understand that that tone and style work for that site and don't work a lot of other places :)

6:42 PM

There's some nice little fleur-de-lis in the EL&U sidebar. They're there; they suit the site; they're not at all distracting.

El'endia Starman

Another thing to consider is the color scheme.

@El'endiaStarman Blood red.

And crusader crosses! Of course.

@waxeagle Agreed. RPG.SE looks very good... for a site about RPGs. But for a site about Christianity, that style would never work.

@waxeagle thanks! my goal is not just to make a site "pretty," but to come up with a design that's relatable to its users. That's why even though essentially I'm designing a SE site(fixed layout structure) over and over again, each site still feels "new" and challenging to me since the communities and topics are different.

@TRiG What's a "crusader cross"? Is it any different from an ordinary cross?

6:43 PM

I may not be being entirely serious.

@MasonWheeler right. We don't want a giant battle scene in our header.. :)

@MasonWheeler I'm thinking of the Cross of St George.

@TRiG Ah, I see.

@MasonWheeler A sword to slay the... I'll stop now.

(Nowadays more commonly known as the English Flag.)

6:44 PM

heh

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Why not? Upon this rock our church is built, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. :P

user image

Hey @Jin! I'm a little late to the party but new that good doesn't to stale fast.

El'endia Starman

Oooh! Dante's Inferno!

user image

6:45 PM

@El'endiaStarman tone? style? bad history? :)

2 mins ago, by TRiG

I may not be being entirely serious.

@TRiG That would be fun. (But I imagine it would ruffle all sorts of feathers.)

as all possibility of cooperation with the J.SE and I.SE disappears

El'endia Starman

in Eschewmenical Blog Room, Aug 16 at 18:03, by Bruce Alderman

@waxeagle And the last one standing gets the title of "True Christian"

@El'endiaStarman :)

6:48 PM

@JonEricson I'm reading a site which says that while St George's Cross is the flag of England, it was also widely adopted as the symbol of the crusades. So I wasn't wrong in calling it the "crusader cross".

However, the side I'm reading that on looks, at a quick glance, rather too "English nationalist" for my taste.

Another motif I like is the crown of thorns:

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Maybe we could use that for badges?

It should have three strands, of course.

El'endia Starman

@El'endiaStarman Eh...that'd be a bit hard to represent well in such a small icon...

@El'endiaStarman That would be kinda cool.

El'endia Starman

6:57 PM

Another reason to use crowns as badges is that there are three crowns that are given to Christians in Scripture: the Crown of Life (James 1:12 and Revelation 2:10), the Crown of Righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8),

and the Crown of Everlasting Glory and Honor (1 Peter 5:4).

Let's see. Here are some fish that I prefer over the ones put on the back of cars:

user image

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Five loaves of bread and two fish. We could probably figure out a place to put that...

Church of the Multiplication

The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, shortened to (The Church of the Multiplication), is a Roman Catholic church located in Tabgha, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The modern church rests on the site of two earlier churches. History The earliest recording of a church commemorating Jesus' feeding of five thousand is by the Spanish pilgrim Egeria circa 380. "Not far away from there (Capernaum) are some stone steps where the Lord stood. And in the same place by the sea is a grassy field with plenty of hay and many palm trees. By them are seven...

That's where the mosaic came from.

@El'endiaStarman's question about the colour scheme was never answered, because I was silly and distracted the conversation.

El'endia Starman

In particular...@Jin, how did you come up with the color scheme for Mi Yodeya?

7:02 PM

@TRiG As long as it isn't maroon and gold, I'm fine. ;-)

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson Colors of a high school or college rival? :P

@El'endiaStarman college

USC

IIRC @JonEricson went to UCLA

@jin Here's my last 2C, sorry to interject in the middle of a conversation. Mi Yodea and a potential BH site have the monopoly on earth tones and OT. Christianity has the Renaissance, which produced the best art in all of human history, so might as well have fun with that.

@PeterTurner purple

El'endia Starman

...*ding* The colors should all be bright. Jesus is the Light of the world, and the site should reflect that idea. So, like, gold and white as the biggest colors.

@waxeagle Purple too, though more for the details, methinks.

7:07 PM

@El'endiaStarman yeah, huge swaths of purple are very hard on the eyes

there is always the wordless book if we get completely lost

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Two of them!

@El'endiaStarman ? not familiar with two, just the one that CEF uses...

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@waxeagle Got it first try. ;-)

@JonEricson :)

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Oh, I thought you were referring to the books mentioned in Revelation. There's the Book of Life and then at least one other.

7:11 PM

@PeterTurner I tend to agree. (Of course I enjoy the papyrus look and hope we'll get it for BH.)

@El'endiaStarman oh, no, I was referring to the evangelism tool.

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle How is a blank book an evangelical tool?

@El'endiaStarman I wanted something warm and inviting. Also I found that color scheme in a lot of Jewish arts

@El'endiaStarman It's helpful when you are interacting with folks who don't read the same language you do.

@El'endiaStarman there is a story that goes with it. It's nice an simple, you can teach it in a few minutes. And it's easy for kids to get

El'endia Starman

7:13 PM

@waxeagle @JonEricson Ahhhh...I see.

@waxeagle Ha, I know what the story is. There's a similar idea behind the Circle symbol.

user image

@El'endiaStarman I've not seen that one before.

@JonEricson me neither

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson It's described in White, which is part of the series (cycle) Black, Red, White, Green by Ted Dekker.

I made a wallpaper based off of a pendant version that one of my friends made for me:

user image

@El'endiaStarman Looks like he needs some web development help: thecircle.teddekker.com

@JonEricson oops

El'endia Starman

7:17 PM

@JonEricson LOL. Oh dear...

@El'endiaStarman That looks very much like the same story.

El'endia Starman

Arg. I gotta shower and then head to class...where I'll probably surreptitiously sneak back to this discussion. :P

@JonEricson Precisely. That's why I immediately figured out the story of the blank book.

@El'endiaStarman In my day, we had to do the crossword to avoid learning in class. ;-)

El'endia Starman

The Circle series basically compresses Earth's 3000+ year history into the life of one man.

7:44 PM

visualswirl.com/inspiration/best-church-website-designs-2011

@Jin I'm not sure I like any of these. They are all kinda samey to me.

(But I've probably seen more than my fair share of church websites. At least none of them are terrible.)

@Jin Just a heads up, we aren't a church and don't want to look/feel like one. In fact I think some visual clues that this is a secular QnA site with topic/theme of Christianity would be welcome.

3

@JonEricson @Caleb agreed. I think most of those are way to noisy and visually heavy to me.

but a few of them have interesting logos.

user image

Yes, true.
Personally I tend to like the ones that evoke some idea of history. The ones trying to hang with the web-2.0 don't hold much appeal to me.

7:56 PM

That reminds me of your J.SE logo. ;-)

I noticed a lot of those churches use tree as the logo. interesting.

@Caleb Absolutely.

I definitely don't want to design based off a "trend." I want the design to stand the test of time. so it'd still look great years from now.

web design trends come and go

I don't have anything specific in mind for the c.se design yet. I think I'll get more ideas once I make the meta post and get suggestions from the community.

but right now, for the overall design direction, I'm leaning towards something clean and simple, but having an "ethereal" feel to it.

Cristo Redentor (statue)

Cristo Redentor (, , standard , local dialect: ) is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; considered the largest Art Deco statue in the world and the 5th largest statue of Jesus in the world. It is tall, including its pedestal, and wide. It weighs 635 tonnes (625 long,700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city. A symbol of Brazilian Christianity, the statue has become an icon for Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, and was constructed between 1922...

@Jin I'm not sure what you mean by ethereal?

@JonEricson light and airy. slightly heavenly?

but i don't think i'll over do it

8:04 PM

@Jin Ok. That could be too "spiritual" for the site if taken too far.

14 mins ago, by Caleb

@Jin Just a heads up, we aren't a church and don't want to look/feel like one. In fact I think some visual glues that this is a secular QnA site with topic/theme of Christianity would be welcome.

@Caleb what do you mean by "secular?"

@Jin non-Christian ie SE is not a "Christian" company

@waxeagle right. but since c.se is a Christian site, does it need to be secular?

31

Q: Brothers, we are not Christians

I am a Christian. You say you are. But we are not. It seems that a lot of folks are having a hard time wrapping their heads around the scope of this site. While I respect the SE staff* and have been impressed with the effort they have taken (and judgement they have shown) in nurturing this site ...

discussion site-definition sensitive-topics

I guess my question is, when a new user visits the site later, shouldn't the overall design and mood "feel" Christian?

8:09 PM

@Jin Secular in the sense of "not-religious".

El'endia Starman

Hmmm...@Caleb, I think that if we use (near-)universally-accepted symbols, we won't feel like a church.

I feel as far as the community identity and design go, they should really reflect what the community is about, not what SE the umbrella.

there are enough elements on the site that reflect that this is a SE site, for example, the fixed layout, the Q&A format.

another way to look at it is, who is Jin designing this site for?

@Jin I'm saying the idea is that we are not a Christian site. We're on the outside looking in, not on the inside trying to reach out like church and "Christian" sites do.

@Caleb I understand.

@Jin That's a good question, actually. I would say people who have an academic interest in Christianity, but may or may not have an affiliation with the religion or any particular church.

El'endia Starman

8:19 PM

@Jin I have a negative gut reaction to the suggestion of making the feel "ethereal". Far too many people see Christianity that way, when it really should be down-to-earth. Jesus didn't hang out with the "saints" of the time; He hung out with the sinners.

@JonEricson I agree the target is really the academic side of things.

I'm not too frequent on this site, at least partially for that reason. I find myself having an incredibly hard time being "fair" and upvoting an answer (or question) that may be fantastic, but in my opinion is completely inaccurate

@El'endiaStarman I can see that. it's hard to describe a design concept with words. I'll provide actual design mockups here as I go along.

I find lack of participation a better solution that being a poor sport :)

We want the doctrinal nuts and bolts people and the bookworms, not the folks looking to give/get a free hug or shoot the religious breeze.

2

El'endia Starman

8:22 PM

@Jin Methinks one way would be to use solid colors as opposed to pastels.

@NathanWheeler I know the feeling: meta.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/132/68

I do watch the chat here frequently though :)

2

Q: What is wrong with question about Jesus' children?

I asked this question because I wanted to give an answer to some guy asking on FB How do we know that Jesus had no children? on a place surrounded by reactions like Yeah, that's the point about Christian lie! I was hoping to find the answer, but could not find any. The only mention about Jesus' ...

El'endia Starman

8:50 PM

@Jin @Caleb I just thought of an example of a site feeling more churchy than secular: the use of a lion and a lamb. It's great Christian and Scriptural imagery, but that's not really appropriate for a site that isn't a church.

@El'endiaStarman It ...?

El'endia Starman

@TRiG The apostrophe and enter keys are next to each other, unfortunately...

@El'endiaStarman It's happened to me at least three times today. Always on chat for some reason...

@El'endiaStarman Hmmm... I'm not sure what you mean by that.

El'endia Starman

@JonEricson It has more of a feel of a lesson. It's a more focused aspect of the nature of Jesus.

@El'endiaStarman Not on my keyboard, they aren't. I have a # between them.

El'endia Starman

8:54 PM

@TRiG You have a non-American keyboard. ;)

@El'endiaStarman UK/Ireland.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Actually, out of curiosity, what does your keyboard look like?

user image

Took a bit of looking. An image search for UK keyboards turns up mainly compressed ones.

Mine doesn't have the Sleep, Wake up, and Power buttons, but other than that this is pretty accurate.

@TRiG That looks downright usable. ;-) (It's only a little bit different and it does fix the problem @El'endia Starman and I have.)

@JonEricson I just keep hitting the semi-colon instead. And then when I'm programming I very often type an l when I want a semi-colon.

9:00 PM

Oh. But CAPS LOCK is too big and Shift and Ctrl are too small. Hard to Emacs...

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Scratch that, here's an exact picture:

user image

@El'endiaStarman Ugh. It's the nearly the same as my laptop keyboard. Very awkward for my hands.

2 hours later…

11:36 PM

user image

So, should Jin use church signs as inspiration?

@TRiG You read my mind. Um, no.

(Besides the obvious issues, the kerning is terrible.)

@JonEricson That's from the latest instalment of "Church Signs Epic Fails".

@JonEricson And I hadn't actually noticed the kerning, but now you mention it ....

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