@Matthew Bottom line is that comments on questions and answers are not for discussing and debating the points presented in the Q or A. They're mostly for suggesting improvements to the Q or A. Not "You should have supported this doctrinal perspective, but "Here's a way to say what you want to say better."

The correct response to a chatty, discussion-inviting comment is to flag it for moderator deletion. You can direct the person to a chatroom if you actually want to have the conversation.

But it's true that the policy isn't always consistently applied. I've sometimes broken that rule if I think I can give a quick response. But if it leads to discussion, I'll say, "Let's take it to chat." Sometimes I'll go back later, delete my comments, and flag the other person's comments for moderator deletion.

@OnlyTrueGod StackExchange as a site really isn't that interested in providing a discussion forum. I suspect they provide for chatrooms mostly because they know people are going to discuss things, and allowing chatrooms makes it possible to shunt the discussion away from the Q&A function, which is the primary purpose of the site.

@OnlyTrueGod Not having read the book, I can't comment on the quality of the argument. But based on the blurb about it on Amazon, I think the author may be missing a major factor: the decline in poverty and the growth in wealth and education that is happening unevenly around the world. As people get richer and more educated, they have fewer children, and they also abandon traditional religions.

I do believe there will be a resurgence in religiosity in the future, but I don't think it will be a resurgence in traditional religions. Those will wane as the world gets richer and more educated. But a new orientation toward God and spirit will, I believe, have a resurgence as people get used to living in comfort and even plenty materially, and find that it still doesn't satisfy their spirit.

The current traditional religions rose up during time when poverty, need, and general ignorance were the common condition of most of the world's people. They work well for people in that condition. They don't work so well when people move out of poverty into a comfortable middle class or even wealthy condition, and when they become educated such that they begin to analyze the doctrinal underpinnings of their old traditional churches.

Uneducated people will just accept whatever their priest or minister tells them, without thinking too carefully about it. They won't necessarily understand it, and they'll have their own idea of what it means, but they won't critically analyze it.

Educated people, however, will analyze what their priest or minister tells them, and evaluate it based on various criteria of rationality, experience, science, the text of the Bible, and so on. They will not just blindly accept doctrines because those doctrines have been the tradition of the church for hundreds or thousands of years, and because people in authority in the church tell them that this is the truth.

And most of the doctrines of traditional Christianity, in particular, don't make much sense when you analyze them rationally. Many of them are also quite repugnant when a person sees clearly what they are actually saying. People today will notice these things about traditional Christian doctrine, and they will reject it. This is the origin of most of the atheism in the world today.

@LeeWoofenden "You should have supported this doctrinal perspective" sounds like a suggestion for improvement to me? But we're mostly talking about "your answer is wrong" comments. Are you suggesting those should be summarily deleted? I'm not sure I can agree with that. Really, what we're looking for is a better way to handle controversial views without suppressing that they are controversial.

@LeeWoofenden If a conversation is moved to chat, that's what I do (delete my comments, flag others "no longer needed"). I've also proactively suggested moving to chat before, but a) this unfortunately has no way to bring in context, and b) in my experience, such offers are frequently declined. I think a more accessible move-to-chat would help.

@LeeWoofenden Yes, this is the initial 'die off'. But after that, religious groups within a society that are pro-natalist start to grow as a relative %. You can see this quite clearly with Jews in Israel or the US. The secular, atheist Jews have very few kids. The ultra-Orthodox have lots. After a few generations, the impact is very noticeable. The same thing is happening within Christianity.

@LeeWoofenden Anything in particular you're thinking of here?

@Matthew Ya, this is another problem. People want to comment in the comments because they're more visible.

@Matthew I agree with @LeeWoofenden's position here which is the official SE position as well. My own practice (if I'm not too lazy) has been to proactively create a room (yes, SE software could have been better to offer manual option to transfer comments to chat) and then copy relevant comments to that room, delete my comments, and insert a manual comment to point to that room. @OnlyTrueGod

@GratefulDisciple See my comment to Woofenden. The line between 'discussing points' and 'suggesting improvements' is vague. Almost everything I say on a post I would consider a suggestion for improvement.