I imagine it might be a negative emotional experience for a theist to see theism described as “the maddest thing you can believe without being considered mad.”. There’s being polite and there’s being constrained in what you are able to discuss for fear that it might be construed as offensive by someone. I think the majority of the discussion here strikes a good balance, certainly better than the average for an Internet forum (admittedly a pretty low bar). Any individual might suffer a negative emotional response to certain specific posts that address topics that are ‘hot button’ issues for them but I would hope that if the general character of the discussions remains high we could all be thick-skinned enough to suffer the occasional slight.
I would suggest that a good rule of thumb for everyone would be to attempt to apply the most generous interpretation to language that could be considered offensive rather than the most negative. If someone says something that could be interpreted as describing you as a pervert and a chronic loser without any clear intention to actually describe you that way, perhaps it would be best to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I imagine it might be a negative emotional experience for a theist to see theism described as “the maddest thing you can believe without being considered mad.”. There’s being polite and there’s being constrained in what you are able to discuss for fear that it might be construed as offensive by someone. I think the majority of the discussion here strikes a good balance, certainly better than the average for an Internet forum (admittedly a pretty low bar). Any individual might suffer a negative emotional response to certain specific posts that address topics that are ‘hot button’ issues for them but I would hope that if the general character of the discussions remains high we could all be thick-skinned enough to suffer the occasional slight.
I would suggest that a good rule of thumb for everyone would be to attempt to apply the most generous interpretation to language that could be considered offensive rather than the most negative. If someone says something that could be interpreted as describing you as a pervert and a chronic loser without any clear intention to actually describe you that way, perhaps it would be best to give them the benefit of the doubt.