The fact that people were offended doesn’t surprise me. While I can’t speak for anyone else, I can say that as a person who does not believe in god here in the U.S., each day has become a run through the gauntlet of religion. Everywhere I turn, someone is trying to force their religious beliefs on me – from the president down to the unwanted person banging on my door. It seems to be permeating the news with stories of daily political antics, laced with god this or god that, some official quoting bible passages, congressmen attending religious gatherings to muster the “troops” using catch phrases of “culture of life”, while wrapping it in the flag. This whole issue has reached critical mass for some people. I can understand why some here would like one last place where they don’t have to fend off religion.
Threads asking for emotional support are a good thing and have, I’m sure, helped a number of people on this board. I hope they continue. A thread asking for prayers is like saying if you don’t believe what I believe, you need not apply. Those that have stated prayers/good thoughts depending on the person’s ideology get my respect for their tolerance of others, even in the author’s time of need.
I must admit I don’t like the idea of a prayer group as this excludes those chiffers who don’t believe from giving support. On the other hand I would hate to see any prayer replies banned. When someone mentions some problem or sadness they’re going through there are many types of support given such as “Keeping you in my prayers”, “Wishing you all the best” and “Thinking of you”.
That sort of caring is one of the things I like best about C&F, I just don’t want to see it get too organised.
And Peter, I do hope your post wasn’t meant to be as harsh as it seemed at this end.
(Edited to say - Sorry Peter, your second post came through while I was typing mine and makes it clear no harshness was intended.)
JBarter said it better than I did. Anyway, that’s what I meant. My only objection to a “prayer group” is that I sort of thought it meant actually posting prayers and that type of thing – like a meeting of the 700 Club. But the other stuff, I AM TOTALLY IN FAVOR OF. Sorry if Cran or anyone else may have misunderstood my misunderstanding. Understand?
I’m disturbed by the reaction to Cran’s post, Teri-K’s very well-expressed post aside.
First of all, I can’t keep up with what I haven’t and have done as a moderator, but I would not delete a prayer request thread unless I conferred with the person or persons who started it. If I did delete one without being asked to do so by the originator, and I’m mistaken about that, someone can let me know, but I’d be stunned to learn that Peter’s characterization of my response to an earlier religiously-oriented thread is accurate.
There’s ongoing discussion on this board–variations on the theme of on-topic/off-topic and the way it’s worked out is that people post about a very wide range of issues, public and personal, on- and off-topic. One can find posts covering the political spectrum, pretty much, all kinds of posts about personal interests and hobbies, and so on. I see no reason to create an environment in which requests for prayers, particularly in threads that are clearly labelled, ought to be singled out for exclusion.
Cran has already backed down from this and that’s Cran’s perogative. But, I’ve got no plans to inhibit religious expression and communication on a board that allows free-wheeling discussion about everything else. People are also free to post their objections, but in a thread labeled something like “prayer request,” I’d frankly find it rather ill-mannered to deliberately enter that thread for the purpose of doing so.
A shorter way of saying this: C&F is a religiously tolerant board. And, yes, I know my avatar ridicules Tom Cruise.
OK. I’m going to display my ignorance again on this forum. My guess is that it’s supposed to be Christ with Tom Cruise’s face? But why Tom Cruise?
Will O’Ban
PS: I know the answer is probably obvious. But I’ve been out of commission lately, so please cut me some slack and don’t come down too hard on my ignorance. Thanks.
Not sure this was aimed at me, I read this thread as a request to start a permanent thread as a prayer group which in my opinion goes beyond an individual request for support. I am all for supporting people. But I am not in favour of having organised religious activities and prayergroups on the forum.
I would never stick my oar in when an individual requests support for whatever reason or slam him/her for doing so. And that was not what my response (or the title of the thread) was about.
I do come from a background severely uncomfortable with very public displays of religious feelings and the unprompted offerings of prayers and calls on whatever deity at hand.
I understand how Teri-K feels and once on the forums I did meet with what I felt was a sort of unpleasant response to what I believe. But it was in a political thread and I just ended the conversation. Otherwise I have had no problems at all.
I don’t get the feeling that those of us who don’t show up to the hypothetical Prayer Thread would be considered outsiders to the forums or would be subjected to questions about our beliefs----as I do believe happens in schools to little children. I just don’t see how it could be used as a way to exclude people. What could we be excluded from?
Basically, I don’t care what people do in a thread is I guess what it comes down to. Ask for prayers, hold a prayer meeting, it would be all the same to me. I would just skip the thread like I do many others.
Dale, I take your point, but Peter was trying to help fiddleronvermouth with a confusion that was obvious to the rest of us and was going on and on and what he stated about cranberry has been stated very clearly before by cranberry himself----maybe cranberry should have jumped in to help her out but that didn’t happen.
Teri-K, “Married almost 15 years: not much”.
I don’t see why anyone would be offended that cranberry brought the topic up. It’s just a discussion about it.
Let me just put it this way. I’m not going to disallow a post or a thread that is established by someone to request prayers. A person who objects to that kind of thread and posts his/her objection with civility won’t find his post deleted either. I’d rather not see a proliferation of “prayer” threads, because I think that, in the pub, one ought not see a list of thread topics that would make one think that’s the primary purpose of the pub. (I’d say the same about a proliferation of political threads, such that it dominated the discussion).
