V'dibarta Bam

5:06 AM

@IsaacMoses Something I was thinking of asking (and may yet). Perhaps I'll first do some Googling to make sure it's a Jewish thing.

And... a simple search shows it's not a Jewish thing.

I still wonder why it's done, but won't be asking on m.y^H^H^HMY.

But if anyone knows -- Why do funeral homes (funeral parlors, funeral chapels) give out calendars?

Isaac Moses

5:55 AM

@msh210 Good question! Looks like a job for ...

amazon.com/Economic-Naturalist-Explanations-Everyday-Enigmas/dp/…

msh210

6:47 AM

@IsaacMoses Maybe so, but I don't think the book discusses this question in particular. (Based on a Google Books search.)

Perhaps I should e-mail David Feldman. Or, um, a funeral-home director.

@IsaacMoses I haven't read that book, but am mostly done with Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which, as opposed to its advertising that it is a history of the universe and world and human species and so on, is primarily a history of cosmology and geology and paleontology and so on. (I.e., it's a history of the science more than a book of science.) It's very interesting, but I was very, very impressed by [continued]

[continued] by the number of times the author indicated that scientists, faced with evidence that didn't fit into their theories or, often, outright contradicted them, ignored it, granted its existence but then ignored it, discredited it, played it down, deliberately misinterpreted it, or tried to wedge it in to their theories artificially. It doesn't give me much faith in the existing theories.

@msh210 Done. (The former.)

Isaac Moses

3:00 PM

Re: http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/1460/im-no-longer-getting-prompts-for-tag-names , I'm now having this problem, too. I tried Ctrl-
F5ing, and that made the whole site into text-only for me.

@msh210 The latter (if it's someone you know) may get results quicker. Either way, if you learn something, I'd love to hear about it.

@msh210 I'm certain that some parts of some of them are wrong.

@IsaacMoses I restarted my browser (FF 18.0.1 running on WinXP), but have the same problem.

I tried Chrome on the same computer and have the same problem

IE8 also

Same goes for other SE sites and SO, but not MSO

Isaac Moses

3:32 PM

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 11 mins ago, by Isaac Moses

Did all SE sites stop working right for anyone else?

et seq. It looks like maybe my work started blocking cdn.sstatic.net, for some reason

muqata.blogspot.com/2013/02/turkey-and-latkes.html

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses sounds like an interesting book. Thanks.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio Yeah; there are some neat explanations in there.

Monica Cellio

@msh210 I suspect that if you ask a random funeral-home director, he'll tell you that he does it because it's traditional. :-)

That is, any individual member of a group that does a certain thing may not know why they do it.

But asking can't hurt if you have someone to ask.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio True, but somewhat less likely when there's corporate money being spent :)

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I was getting the "text-only" (content sans style) problem intermittently yesterday, both in Firefox and on my phone. (For the latter it was happening on my network profile, not MY specifically.)

@IsaacMoses good point.

Isaac Moses

3:44 PM

@MonicaCellio I have it on all SE sites and SO, but not MSO. It seems very likely that it's tied to my inability to reach cdn.sstatic.net

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses your employer blocks cdn.sstatic.net but doesn't block blogspot? Weird. (Anything that smells like blogs or social media gets a fast trip onto our blacklist. :-( )

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio Blogspot is blocked, but reader.google.com isn't :)

... and the cdn thing is, I hope, temporary

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses ah. Both are blocked for me. I'm not sure what cdn.sstatic.net serves, but the site is (so far) behaving for me today.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio It's the content delivery network that gives you all the static content (including CSS styling) for the sites (or so I've learned at the Tavern)

Monica Cellio

I remember a glitch where the rich-text buttons weren't working on posts one day, and it was because whatever site serves those had been erroneously added to some bad-guy list that our IT subscribes to. It cleared up a day or two later.

@IsaacMoses oh, ouch. So the sites are pretty much unusable for you until that gets fixed. :-(

Isaac Moses

3:48 PM

@MonicaCellio ... and there was a months-long "glitch" during which I couldn't get into chat.SE that just went away one day

@MonicaCellio correct

Anyway, the link to Muqata I put above is him discovering the viral Chanuka/Thanksgiving thing that was first linked on the internet by @SethJ in this room

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses oh, right -- you're in chat during your workday now, yay!

msh210

4:13 PM

@IsaacMoses That sounds to me like a slow server response: the JS (tag recommendations ) and CSS 9prettification) aren't loading. (IANA sysadmin.)

Never mind: I've now read your further comments here and in the Tavern.

@MonicaCellio Yeah.

@IsaacMoses Are they? Any well-written site should degrade gracefully in absense of CSS & JS. Do SE sites not?

@IsaacMoses Perhaps they'd discovered too many employees using it, so blocked it, then no employees were using it, so they unblocked it. :-)

Monica Cellio

Just now I got the "no styling" problem on Workspace meta, and a browser refresh (soft refresh) fixed it. That sounds like flakiness rather than blocking, and is consistent with the intermittent problems I saw yesterday. I wonder what's going on.

Isaac Moses

5:05 PM

@msh210 I can read, ask questions, post answers, and edit Q&A. I can't comment, vote, flag, or vote to close. And, of course, nothing's formatted nicely. So, yes, I have some functionality, but lack a great deal.

@msh210 I'm sure it's not quite that simple. I'm not sure it's any less silly.

msh210

@IsaacMoses Mhm. You do work for the government, don't you?

@IsaacMoses It would be nice if the site as a whole degraded gracefully, but of course the ability to read, ask, answer, and edit are the most important parts.

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I wonder whether, as a work-around until this gets fixed, you could use Stylish to apply the relevant javascript (which you would have to harvest from home, of course).

All, how can we help this poster? (Newcomer and, reading between the lines, English might not be the first language.)

0

Q: whats does mean Ribbon Shel Olam at

Ribbon Shel Olam at and why? im wonder!! im mexican but i m an admirer of jew people i love them i love Israel i love everything about this country and his history since ancient days their strenght is my joy and their pain and sorrows are mine too. im a mordechai ben david admirer. i have reading...

history

Isaac Moses

@msh210 I work for an agency created by interstate compact. It's definitely public sector, but it's never been 100% clear to me that I'm a government employee, per se. Anyway, the blacklist is probably maintained by a private-sector vendor.

@MonicaCellio Invite to Chat? The question is unsalvageable without lots of input from OP as far as I can tell. I'd close it

Seth J

5:26 PM

@MonicaCellio Just edit it. The question body has nothing to do with the title, but the title makes it pretty clear what he wants to know, doesn't it?

@MonicaCellio And I think "At" might be Alef-Tav, Aramaic for "You" (sing. masc.).

Isaac Moses

@SethJ I think the title is the question, but is that sufficient as a question? There's no [relevant] motivation. I agree that the rest should be removed.

Monica Cellio

@SethJ I'm wondering if editing out 90% of the message would come across badly to a new user. It needs to be done, but what's the gentlest approach?

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio That's what comments are for

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I left one after bringing this question up here.

Isaac Moses

@IsaacMoses That wasn't very gentle

@MonicaCellio I mean, comment explaining nicely why the irrelevant parts of his question were stripped and that he's welcome to explain who he is and why he likes Jews in his profile

Monica Cellio

5:32 PM

@IsaacMoses oh, I see. Thanks; that makes sense.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio You can link to judaism.stackexchange.com/faq#link-signatures

Seth J

I wasn't very gentle, I guess, but I don't think we need to assume he will be deeply offended for helping him just because he doesn't speak/write very good English.

Isaac Moses

@SethJ I think your comment's potentially very helpful

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I agree. Thanks @SethJ.

Seth J

shrugs

@DoubleAA honestly??? judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26054/…

Isaac Moses

5:39 PM

@SethJ If I had the ability to vote to close, I would.

msh210

@IsaacMoses See my comment on the question. I don't think it's a good question! But on topic? Yes IMO.

Seth J

@IsaacMoses, ok, but I'm referring to the comment.

Double AA

@SethJ Do you have a better example of something in Jewish History that over 8 million people directly experienced?

Seth J

@DoubleAA, I have a better example of tact...

Monica Cellio

@DoubleAA it's a bad question -- maybe on-topic, maybe not -- but going Godwin's Law on us isn't going to help the discourse.

Double AA

5:51 PM

@MonicaCellio It has nothing to do with the ethics of anything. So I don't think GL applies. (ie I didn't call anyone Hitler or compare anyone's ethics to Hitler's, so there is no reason to stop the discourse.)

Monica Cellio

@DoubleAA I just meant that bringing the Shoah evokes a deep, visceral reaction that should perhaps be saved for cases where that reaction is the goal. Was it?

Double AA

@MonicaCellio in this case, the visceral reaction was against what exactly?

People get offended when you compare bad deed x to the bad deed called the holocaust as it cheapens the holocaust. They are usually right. That is not what happened here.

Monica Cellio

@DoubleAA I can't speak for anyone else. My reaction was "wait, did he just compare some Aish video to the Shoah? WTF?" I was confused, and because of the gravity of the comparison I thought there must be something majorly wrong with the video (which I can't view here at work). I gather that's not what you were trying to do.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 @SethJ I can only see the top 5 comments :(

Double AA

@MonicaCellio I compared the number of watchers of the video to the number of 'observers' of the holocaust. He claimed questions about a certain video were on topic because it has 8 million views on Youtube. I disagree with that logic.

dropping out. be back soon.

Monica Cellio

6:00 PM

@DoubleAA I reject that logic too.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio @DoubleAA, I agree. No matter what the axis of comparison is, don't compare stuff to the Holocaust unless you need to. BTW, Godwin's Law is descriptive, not prescriptive.

@msh210 ... so I haven't seen your comment, but I'd at least downvote this question. There's no motivation in it, and no on-topic motivation for it that I care to assume on its behalf

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses here's his comment:

msh210's comment 25 minutes ago was: "The Holocaust (and Jewish history) is about Jews, not Judaism, so off-topic in general. I fail to see how a video about Rosh Hashana, a Jewish holiday, is not about Judaism, @SethJ, Double AA."

Isaac Moses

6:18 PM

... I'm becoming more sympathetic to Jeff Atwood's adamance in this answer that we need to push people to ask questions that have real motivation (though I still think that both he and the current wording in various parts of SE are a little too programming-oriented)

Double AA

@IsaacMoses I disagree. I don't shun the Holocaust and see no problem in using it accurately.

A term like 'grammar nazi' inaccurately depicts a nazi as someone who likes to whine, as opposed to a mass murderer.

Isaac Moses

6:34 PM

@DoubleAA You're going to unintentionally elicit distracting emotional responses from people that way.

@DoubleAA "nazi," I think, has become less loaded than "Nazis" or "Holocaust."

I, like Godwin's Law, am being purely descriptivist here. Just saying what the likely consequences of certain choices are. It's irrelevant, IMO, in this case, whether people should be offended when you compare their stuff's popularity to that of the Holocaust; the fact is that they will, and my recommendation is to avoid causing that when possible

<Soapboxing some more on motivation in questions> I think that "I'm curious" can actually be a fine reason for a Torah question, much more so than for a programming question, since we place inherent value in learning. Even so, such questions will be of higher quality and more answerable if they include their motivation and work done to date.

3

... non-Torah Jewish world questions whose implicit motivation is "I'm curious" - I'm much less sympathetic to.

... especially stuff that reads like it belongs in the gossip column

What do people think of the following test questions?

- "Was this line of R"H honey dishes manufactured by Jews?"

- "Is Adam Sandler (singer/songwriter of The Chanuka Song) Jewish?"

- "How many of the actors in A Stranger Among Us were Jewish?"

- "Is the publishing company that put out this hagada owned by Jews?"

I'd say that these questions (as well as the one at hand) do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. If they want to not be closed, they should include a valid justification of why they're on-topic in the question

Double AA

6:53 PM

(Ping @msh210 ^^^ who was the main advocate AFAICT of deeming the question which sparked this discussion on topic.)

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA What; it's not good enough that I should talk to myself at length? (Thanks)

msh210

@IsaacMoses Hm, good point. I think your honey-dish, Chanuka-Song and hagada questions are on-topic -- but lacking motivation and (mostly therefore) poor-quality.

(The movie question may be off-topic since it's about Jews not Judaism. Not sure.)

Isaac Moses

@msh210 How are they on-topic?

@msh210 There's a bunch of Jewish practice and belief exposed in that movie. (Some of it incorrectly, but that's another story.)

msh210

@IsaacMoses I haven't seen it (or read the WP article :-) ).

Isaac Moses

@msh210 You shouldn't have to to decide if the question's on-topic or not. (I'm serious.)

msh210

7:04 PM

@IsaacMoses You mean, it should be obvious to all from the FAQ and the wording of the question? I agree.

But if the question lacks motivation and would be on-topic if it had it, does that make it off-topic?

Isaac Moses

@msh210 s/would be/could be/ then yes

msh210

Well, here all you need for topicality IMO is an explanation of The Chanuka Song. That makes it "would be" not "could be". Would you still say it's off-topic without such explanation?

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Why is the Jewish identity of the writer on-topic?

Monica Cellio

@msh210 I agree with @IsaacMoses that they're all off-topic without motivation. If the honey one is a kashrut concern, bring it as a kashrut question. Similarly for the haggadah one. if the movie question is one about accuracy of depiction then ask that; whether the movie-maker is Jewish davka doesn't mean anything.

@msh210 that's something that can be fixed while the question is closed for editing, right?

msh210

@IsaacMoses "history of Jewish law or of Jewish life" - on-topic per the FAQ.

@MonicaCellio Sure.

Isaac Moses

7:10 PM

@msh210 So any question about The Chanuka Song is therefore on-topic?

"Does Adam Sandler actually smoke mj on Chanuka?"

msh210

@IsaacMoses "Any" is a strong word. But for the most part they'd be on-topic, yes, I think. Worth keeping open for other reasons, only possibly.

@IsaacMoses ??

Isaac Moses

"What motivated the choice of chord progression?"

@msh210 (There's a recommendation in the song to do so.)

msh210

@IsaacMoses Yeah, I suppose so. Again, unmotivated. And probably unanswerable.

@IsaacMoses Ah - well, that's not "history of Jewish law or of Jewish life" - it's not about the song - it's about the content of the song. Adding in motivation may make it topical....

Isaac Moses

@msh210 I disagree. If we don't currently have a higher standard than that about what's on-topic, I think we ought to.

msh210

@IsaacMoses Maybe we should!

Or -- maybe just a higher standard for motivation (at least for 'life' Qs, as you mentioned earlier).

Isaac Moses

7:15 PM

"How many centimeters of top margin were included in the original printing of Igros Moshe?"

msh210

@IsaacMoses If you meant that as an example of a 'learning' not a 'life' Q, I disagree.

Isaac Moses

"How many fingers did the Mechaber have?"

These are "history of Jewish life"

I propose that without any change in the FAQ, all of the above (and the question at hand) can be closed as NARQ pending some explanation of why the question matters from a JL&L perspective

HodofHod

@IsaacMoses Sounds like a riddle (NARQ) to me. On the other hand: "This passage seems to imply that the Mechaber had less than the normal number of digits. Is this true?" <- On-topic, methinks

msh210

News items from the sooper-seekrit moderators' meeting currently underway, which seem to be public info AFAICT so I can share them here: Closed posts that are then edited automatically go to the re-open queue. Closures as duplicate are called "Duplicate (not "closed"). (There are some other recent & upcoming changes to closure also, which are either too seekrit or not interesting enough to share here.)

@IsaacMoses NARQ sounds right. Not off-topic though

HodofHod

Hm, forgot how much I missed those.

@msh210 Any word on broken-links?

Isaac Moses

7:20 PM

@msh210 Given that we agree on that, I have no motivation to continue to push for these to be called off-topic

msh210

@HodofHod What about them? But no, not that I see, yet.

HodofHod

@msh210 the review category. Mentioned last year sometime, briefly visible, and then - nothing.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Thanks. I like both of these ideas. The former was recently discussed/announced on the SE podcast.

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses works for me.

msh210

@IsaacMoses But the question under current discussion says "I heard" which is asort of motivation, unlike the M'chaber's-fingers question.

Isaac Moses

7:23 PM

@HodofHod Assuming it's a passage from Sh"A or the like, I agree

@msh210 It's not a JL&L motivation

msh210

4 mins ago, by msh210

@IsaacMoses NARQ sounds right. Not off-topic though

^^ this was written in haste: I meant it not necessarily about all the questions Isaac had referred to in his chat post

@IsaacMoses What if it's from a secular biographer of the M'chaber's?

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Then who JL&L-cares?

Why is this question relevant to the field of Jewish life and learning?

(Not just related, relevant)

msh210

"Who the JeLL cares?"

2

bbiab

Isaac Moses

@msh210 8P

Isaac Moses

7:40 PM

"Why did Sandler choose that chord progression? I want to know because I am a musician who wants to make a song that's similarly catchy. But guess what; you have to leave this question up on your site because it's about an artifact that is part of Jewish life. Ha!"

"This secular historian of Egypt hints that the Mechaber may have been missing a pinky. Is this so, and if so, which one? I want to know because I'm making a list of famous people in Egypt in that period who were missing digits. But guess what ..."

Stack Exchange

8:08 PM

Blog - Stack Exchange: Podcast #42 – It’s The Exception That Proves The Rule

Alex Miller on February 05, 2013

Welcome to Stack Exchange Podcast #42 – it’s our usual gang back this week with Joel, Jay, David, and Producer Alex. There’s plenty of inside baseball, so put on your rally caps and make sure to stick it through to the end!

David Mamet, apparently. Jay was a drama major.

Michael forgot to pay the Google bill, so our hangouts are back down to 10 person limits (but its fixed now!)

We have one big thing to talk about that made a change and generated controversy. Joel correctly guesses what it is: we no longer display your accept rate (the percentage of questions you asked that you accepted an answer for). …

msh210

8:33 PM

@IsaacMoses Yeah, I get the picture.

Okay, walk me through this. You still around, @IsaacMoses? Or anyone else. The question under discussion has three closure votes as off-topic. I don't think it meets that definition of off-topicness as currently worded in the FAQ / agreed upon in Meta. Perhaps [cont'd]

Isaac Moses

@msh210 hineini. Waiting for second half of your comment

msh210

[cont'd] it can be closed as NARQ ("It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form."), but I'm not seeing how it meets the letter of that law, either. Again, it's a lousy question, don't get me wrong, but can someone convince me to exercise my diamond-mod powers and close it?

(There's also "not constructive": "As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion." But I don't think it meets that, either.)

Oh, there's also too localized: "This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet." I suppose it's arguably irrelevant to anyone except the asker (sans motivation edited in) and hence too localized. Thoughts?

(Yeah, I actually like that last one.)

Okay, I'll shut up now.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 OK; that.

msh210

@IsaacMoses Is that an "OK, whatever gets it closed" or an "OK, I actually think that's reasonable"? :-)

Isaac Moses

Justification for either NARQ or NC: The FAQ says "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." I don't like this language, but I think it's sufficient basis to call a question that doesn't demonstrate how the author "faces" it either "cannot be reasonably answered" or "not a good fit"

@msh210 Both. You're asking for someone to convince you to use your powers. For my purposes, it's sufficient if I can nudge you to act on your already-stated conviction by endorsing it.

@IsaacMoses ... and if the way the author "faces" it is irrelevant to the scope of this site, that shouldn't help. OTOH, if it's obvious from the type of question that the author "faces" it in a relevant way (e.g. a lomdus question), then that's sufficient by itself to avoid closure on these grounds

msh210

8:48 PM

Argh. I was about to close as off-topic with the comment "Per the chat linked to in my preceding comment, I'm closing this. If you can edit some motivation for your curiosity into the question that shows how this is a question about Jewish life rather than a question about something Aish did at some point, it can be reopened."

Isaac Moses

@msh210 What stopped you?

msh210

I can't bring myself to -- the grounds seem too flimsy.

Sorry, I'm just not convinced. OTOH @DoubleAA seems to be (in a comment on the question) so maybe now that he has 3 other closure votes as off-topic he'll close it.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Good thing I invested some of my monthly quota of mobile data to go in and cast a vote from my phone.

msh210

@IsaacMoses Worth every penny. Or every twelve and a half pennies.

@IsaacMoses Again, don't get me wrong -- I think it's a lousy question, I want to see it closed (or edited to a good and on-topic question), and if I didn't have a diamond I'd vote to close it. The only reason I'm not closing it is that I don't see that it fits into any of the closure reasons quite well enough or me to feel comfortable exercising my mod power.

@IsaacMoses So, will be you running next election? :-)

Isaac Moses

@msh210 For what?

msh210

9:01 PM

@IsaacMoses Diamond mod.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Is there one anticipated?

msh210

@IsaacMoses Not anticipated by me at any particular time, but my impression (possibly wrong) is that graduated sites have them periodically (yearly??).

Isaac Moses

@msh210 I think it depends on need

Oct 16 '12 at 17:36, by Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA I'm very happy with the mod team we've got :) If elections ever get called again, I'd probably throw my hat in.

msh210

@IsaacMoses It may well.

@IsaacMoses Anyway, I was asking jocularly, because I'd been sort-of giving a reason not to be a mod.

@MonicaCellio I've edited this so it will continue to exist here even if I delete the original (as I'm about to). Hope you don't mind. If you do, let me know, and I bl"n won't do it again.

Monica Cellio

9:18 PM

@msh210 I don't mind. Quoting it here was just a way to give Isaac context for something he temporarily couldn't see. It's served its purpose.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 phrases.org.uk/meanings/396000.html

Seth J

9:37 PM

@msh210 I'm gonna run in the next election if you don't close this question.

@msh210 OK, how about this for a parallel case: "I heard the Aish webmaster is not Jewish. Can anyone bring reliable proof that this is true?"

Honestly, how is this on topic? At all?

Just because one piece of online content is produced for promotional purposes of a Jewish "Life and Learning" organization, that does not make every detail of its production relevant to Jewish Life and Learning.

@msh210, it's not NARQ. It's completely and totally clear what is being asked, and it's also completely and totally irrelevant to Jewish Life and Learning, and therefore completely and totally off-topic.

Monica Cellio

I closed it.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio IT'S GETTING COLD IN HERE! WILL SOMEONE PLEASE CLOSE THE WI- oh. Thanks.

@MonicaCellio I guess @SethJ's threat scared you into action?

Seth J

@MonicaCellio , @IsaacMoses, @msh210, sorry if I was being a jerk, but it was a no-brainer to me, and I think finding the perfect justification to close it was preventing worthwhile action.

Isaac Moses

@SethJ I think I was being about as forceful and persistent as you were.

Seth J

@IsaacMoses Thanks.

@IsaacMoses I think nobody wanted to step on anyone's toes or offend anyone, even though it seemed like everyone agreed it should be done - just not why.

@IsaacMoses I guess nobody wants me to be a diamond mod. Story of my life.

Isaac Moses

9:49 PM

@SethJ I don't think @msh210 was fully in agreement that it should be done. I don't think anyone here managed to offend anyone or tried too hard not to.

Seth J

@IsaacMoses Reverse your "to"s. ;-)

Isaac Moses

@SethJ :)

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses yeah, with one mod for and one against and me kind of "meh" on it, I had to think about it. It's a bad question (-7 at the moment), but I was wary of using the diamond before something resembling support emerged.

Isaac Moses

@SethJ, seriously, I think we, as a community (and particularly the ones who've been around a while) are pretty good at recognizing the difference between an adamant argument and a personal attack

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses agreed. I hope no one here felt anything was personal.

Seth J

9:53 PM

@MonicaCellio I certainly didn't mean anything personal. Except, maybe, my visceral reaction...

:-\

Awkward.

Monica Cellio

@SethJ eh, it happens.

Double AA

10:25 PM

@TRiG Hey! Any thoughts on this recent answer: judaism.stackexchange.com/a/26045/759 (for here, or for the comments there; I mostly just thought you'd find it interesting.)

Double AA

10:36 PM

Covert to comment? judaism.stackexchange.com/a/26062/759

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA Maybe ask the author to expand first?

Double AA

@IsaacMoses Ya, that's what I expected your response to be. We have a very vague attitude towards link only answers.

SE policy seems to be that they are comments. We have a somewhat inconsistent record here on Mi Yodeya.

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA It's just that I'd hate to lose an answer with a palindromic post ID

2

Double AA

@IsaacMoses Ah of course! Why didn't I think of that?

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA I support allowing policy to trump record in this case. We have a record of under-moderating (especially pre-migration).

2

@DoubleAA Convert it, and comment back saying that he/she is welcome to post a more expanded answer and delete the comment

Monica Cellio

10:44 PM

@IsaacMoses yup, sounds right. If it already had votes I'd hesitate, but now's the time to nip it in the bud.

Double AA

> Hi wfb, thanks for this pointer. We generally expect posts to include the content of the answer, so ~~despite the fact that this post's ID number is a palindrome,~~ I've converted this to a comment for people's reference. If you'd like you can post a new answer with a summary and delete this comment yourself.

look good?

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA Yes; thanks

Double AA

@IsaacMoses @MonicaCellio Done.

TRiG

11:40 PM

@DoubleAA I still can't get my head around the Trinity. I was, as I mentioned in comments on other answers to that question, brought up as a non-Trinitarian Christian, which definitely puts me in the minority. Different branches of Christianity are more or less likely to declare other branches non-Christian, but almost all of them would call the JWs non-Christian. The Trinity is central to most of Christianity (in spite of not being found in any part of the Bible).

That said, I don't think the Trinity counts as polytheism, by any normal definition of that word. There have been splits over the understanding of the Trinity, but actually most of Christianity today is fairly unified on that subject. It's one of the things with very few disagreements. (That makes the JWs and other non-Trinitarians stand out even more from the rest of Christianity.)

How do you know that the definition of monotheistic that you use is relevant to this issue? — Double AA 7 hours ago

Hmm. What definition do you use?

If we're going to use words in standard practice, rather than invent our own, we have to choose between monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, and henotheism. From that set, the Trinity is pretty clearly monotheistic. If you don't accept that, you'll have to invent some new terminology.

(Anyway, I'd've thought the incarnation would be more of a problem for you.)

> With Catholicism, however, other questions are in play, because many Catholics pray to their "Saints" as proxies, asking the Saints to pray to God on their behalf.

Yeah. No. I don't think proxies is the right word here.

> Just as I might ask my friends to pray for me I might also ask a saint in Heaven to pray for me.

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A: Praying to people outside the Trinity

The phrase "pray to" confuses most people as it gives the impression that anyone who asks a saint to "pray for" them is actually praying to the saint as if he/she was God. This isn't true and is probably an artifact of language. The word "pray" also has the meaning to "make an earnest petition"...

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A: Praying to people outside the Trinity

First off, it's useful to understand that Catholics (and that's Roman or Eastern Catholic, and, for that matter Eastern Orthodox) do not pray to the saints, so much as ask the faithful departed to pray for them to God. The idea has it's roots in the "communion of saints", along the lines of Hebr...

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