5:51 AM
@Matthew If an answer is controversial, then there are three basic possibilities: 1. The question was primarily opinion-based, meaning it should be closed. 2. The answer was badly written, meaning it should be downvoted or deleted. 3. The reader is unable to maintain objectivity and see that this is an objective answer to a fact-based question.
On C.SE, doctrinal disagreement is irrelevant. If the question is, "What did Calvin teach about X?" then the answer is to say what Calvin taught about that thing. If Calvin was so confused on that issue that he didn't give a clear answer, then saying that is an objective answer. If he just didn't care about that question and never wrote anything about it, then saying that is an objective answer.
But presumably, on any important doctrinal issue related to Calvinism, Calvin did say something definite about it.
People can argue about whether Calvin was right or wrong. But that's not what the question is asking. And if a question did ask that, then it should be closed as primarily opinion-based.
@Matthew Perhaps a quick-and-easy way to move to chat would help. But once again, that's really not what this site is about, and therefore not a high priority for the site's owners.
Also, a lot of commenters are hit-and-run. They're not interested in discussing it. Just in asserting their own opinion, and saying that people who disagree with them are stupid. These comments should simply be flagged for deletion.
@OnlyTrueGod There may be pockets where conservatism is the primary reason for large families, and liberalism leads to small families. But once again, the larger trend is that rich and well-educated people tend to have few children, whereas poor and less educated people tend to have more children. And there is some correlation between religious conservatism and being poor and less educated.
I'm not saying there are no well-educated religious conservatives. Obviously there are. But in general, fundamentalist sects of any religion tend to flourish among the poor and less-educated, whereas liberal sects tend to do better among middle-class and better educated segments of the population.
As the world's population becomes richer and better educated, the sort of religious conservatism that goes along with having big families will tend to decline overall.
Original sin is a terrible doctrine. Total depravity is even worse. And double predestination is the most blasphemous thing I've ever heard.
@OnlyTrueGod Not really. Good editors understand that their job is not to express their own views, but to help authors express their views as clearly and cogently as possible. To write a good comment on a question or answer on StackExchange, it's necessary to grasp what the OP wants to say, and then make suggestions for how the OP can say that better.
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I was Editor of a monthly devotional magazine for my church for a decade back in the 1990s and 2000s. The previous Editor liked to tell a story about how he sweated over a particular minister's sermon to get it into good, readable shape for publication. Once it was published, the author of the sermon said to the Editor, "Hmm. I'm a better writer than I thought I was!" ;-)
Similarly, when I was editor, one of our ministers jokingly asked me if I could edit all her sermons before she preached them.
These are Editor success stories. If, upon finishing an editing job, the author says, "Yes! That's exactly what I wanted to say!" then the Editor has done a good job.
Comments on Qs or As here on C.SE that help the OP to better express what s/he wanted to ask, or say, or to provide better support for what s/he wanted to say, are good comments. Comments that say, "I think your doctrinal position is wrong, and you should have answered this different way instead" are bad comments.
Of course, if an answer is factually incorrect, pointing that out is a proper use of the comments. However, that's also what downvoting is for, and downvoting such an answer is probably the better action.
As an example of "factually incorrect," my son was playing around with ChatGPT, and knowing his ol' man's penchant for Swedenborg, asked it to summarize Swedenborg's teachings in ten brief points. Some of them were right enough, though generally somewhat vague. And some of them were at least partially incorrect.
For example, it says that according to Swedenborg, "Jesus is the divine Son of God and the savior of humanity."
