Can we make MN less hostile?

[Bootstrap]

Ok...I think people who frequently whine about how persecuted they are but consistently dismiss other people's experiences of hardship or oppression are not safe people to relate to. I'm talking about those kinds of red flags.

People who are victims and bullies at the same time. In denial of both.

[Neto]

I wish Paul would have written something in one of his letters about this. Something about slow to anger and slow to speak.

... maybe it was something someone should have told HIM. (Like a lesson he hadn't learned himself. I kinda' see him as the "aggressor" in the conflict with Barnabas over John Mark. I'm not just picking on Paul. He was just an imperfect man, just as I am as well. Yesterday I needed to call our Sunday School teacher and make a confession about how I jumped all over a guy whose magazine article the teacher read in class. I used to often read that man's editorials, but I haven't anymore for some time, so I cannot even say why I don't care to read his thoughts anymore. I suppose i should give him another "chance".)

[GaryK]

If that’s too hard, maybe you could go to a forum where people all think like you and then you’d never have to have another “toxic” interaction that make you feel yucky again.

I think the moderators have made it clear that Szdfan is welcome on this forum. And in this post, you responded to him by demonstrating how toxic you can be sometimes. To me, posts like that don't make you seem logical or rational or Christlike.

I'm curious how you would classify the bolded and underlined? Toxic, abusive, judgmental, Christlike? I too, thought Nett's responses to Szdfan were a bit harsh but the underlined above also seem a bit harsh to me.

[nett]

Why force him to talk to you? If he doesn't want to talk to you, he doesn't have to. And what's the whole self-victimizing thing about?

I'm not forcing anyone to talk to me. He voluntarily commented on the thread. I think you're totally missing the progressive tactic of just repeating lies over and over, and then refusing to respond to anyone who calls it out. It's literally straight out of rules for radicals

Szdfan is not a whiner. He doesn't play the victim, I don't think, and I really don't think he was doing that in that particular thread.

Why are you making subjective statements in an objective tone, like you're somehow the authority on this. I happen to think Szd whines a great deal, and plays the victim often.

He is being clear and direct: he doesn't want to talk to you. You persist, and he gives you a reason. Other people have also flagged some of your posts as toxic, including some moderators.

Who exactly has flagged posts as toxic? Sudsy back when I was posting studies about how COVID vaccines didn't prevent transmission? I would love to revisit some of those threads with you, because as I recall you promised responses to a few posts that you just ghosted on, and other people called you out on that too.

What bothered me the most about this: here he is saying he doesn't want to talk to you because he finds these interactions toxic, and you tell him that he has no right to not talk to you, no right to feel however he feels and factor that in.

He doesn't want to talk to me because he has an agenda. He has said the exact same thing to soloist about refusing to respond, even though soloist is never harsh with him. This about an agenda that he doesn't want to be questioned on.

If he didn't want to talk about these things, he's free not to post.

I agree with you on an awful lot when it comes to LGBTQ, but I don't think that justifies talking to Szdfan this way. And I suspect that if the two of you were just talking with each other over coffee, without an audience, you wouldn't talk to him like this. To me, this feels more like playground bullying than anything else. Szdfan is treating you a lot better than you are treating him in this post.

So the content of what being posted doesn't matter to you, just the tone, even though tone over text is almost impossible to infer.

Maybe you missed this post, you really think is a nice way to talk to me? This was before I had really address Szd's agenda in a personal way at all.

Trans teenagers have some of the highest suicide homeless rates, not because of gender affirmation treatment or that there is something intrinsically wrong with them, but because they live in a world that despises and rejects them. My students need protection from toxic bigots like you

I’m sorry it doesn’t feel good when you get trapped in obvious logical fallacies, but maybe you should reconsider your stance instead of just shouting nonsense?

Personally, when someone tells me how logical they are and how illogical I am by screaming abusive language, that makes me trust my logic more than the other person's. Just saying. And mocking someone else's feelings with an audience is what I call bullying. That's not Christlike at all.

Screaming abusive language? Where exactly is there any abuse? I think you're playing it really fast and loose with real terms that involve real harm, and in doing so, you're seriously doing an injustice to people who suffer real abuse. Escalating definitions makes the words meaningless. What's next, are you going to call me a nazi?

This is an internet forum, he is completely free to disengage, and never have to read or respond to my posts again. If he continues to post, there is a basic decency of debate that you don't single out people who disagree with you, and refuse to respond.

Also, I think we should generally let other people decide who they think is being more logical. We don't get to grade our own contributions to a conversation.

Yet in the various COVID conversations you did this exact thing, consistently grading yourself as more capable than others to evaluate credible sources. I think Robert even got to the point where he banned one of your sources, because it was so egregious.

Again, this is the internet, it's an exchange of ideas, not an emotional conversation at a coffee shop.

If that’s too hard, maybe you could go to a forum where people all think like you and then you’d never have to have another “toxic” interaction that make you feel yucky again.

I think the moderators have made it clear that Szdfan is welcome on this forum. And in this post, you responded to him by demonstrating how toxic you can be sometimes. To me, posts like that don't make you seem logical or rational or Christlike.

What do you want here? Should I back down and apologize to Szd for calling out his pro-grooming stance?

He called me a toxic bigot, said I was justifying terrorism, asked me why I hate trans people so much, generally violated Robert's i statement rule repeatedly, and neither you, nor anyone else had much to say about it, so please stop with the self-righteousness about tone. You're not remotely objective about it. You're just jumping on the bandwagon, because your friend made a big deal out of it.

[Josh]

Szdfan frequently complains about how toxic I am and other people on this forum are. When challenged, he then excuses himself by saying “I prefer not to interact with you.”

He could use the “foe” feature and simply ignore people he does not like.

I would not engage with him like I do if he didn’t claim to (a) be a Mennonite, (b) be an ordained minister, (c) be a teacher (both in matters of faith and otherwise), and (d) be a Christian. But he claims to be all of these things, and chooses to indeed engage with us and make some rather very serious accusations.

In particular, it is difficult to engage with such a person as if we are of the same faith, but I try my best. I am open for any and all suggestions of how to do so. If any person in my own denomination behaved the same way, I would end up having the same interactions.

[Robert]

Jesus, I feel your pain.

[MaxPC]

Jesus, I feel your pain.

Likewise.

Suggestion: Since we have a forum member named Gary, change the name from Gary to one that is not a member here. Perhaps
Wilber?
Loki?
Beowulf?
Hezekiah?
Barbie?
Trixie?
Brünhild?

[steve-in-kville]

Jesus, I feel your pain.

I haven't laughed that much at 4:30am in a very long time

[Bootstrap]

I think that there are two forms of communication going on here, there is a refusal by several members to actually answer questions and they instead try to redirect it and again repeat claims that they refuse to provide support for which is a form of hostile communication by seeking to control the narrative. Then there is several members openly speaking their mind. Both sides dislike the other persons form of communication and insist the other is at fault.

I see this somewhat differently.

To me, if we don't want a fight and we do want to learn about Scripture, the Kingdom of God, critical thinking skills, etc., we need to get the focus off of who the good people and bad people are, promoting claims about others that are often false, etc. In other words, turn the attention AWAY from the food fight. And on MN, you can rarely do that by giving someone an example of what you think THEY did wrong. I think I just illustrated that by responding to Nett's request for an example. I rarely, rarely see anyone apologize for anything here.

To me, it's better to keep the focus on Scripture, the Kingdom of God, the claims people are making and what evidence various sides have given for those claims, without trying to shut other people up or tear other people down.

So when you say "there is a refusal by several members to actually answer questions", I suspect you may be thinking of examples of the kind of bad behavior that Szdfan is talking about. I think those examples exist, but I also doubt that anything good happens if we dredge up examples, people will just double down and take sides.

I also think "there is a refusal by several members to actually answer questions" - whenever I ask people to provide evidence for the claims they are making. Often, the refusal comes with an insult. We may simply want different things, but I would very much like to be able to say, OK, here's a claim that one side or the other is making, what is the evidence for an against that claim? More critical thinking, less campaigning.

[Bootstrap]

For example?

I'm going to drop this line. I disagree with you about a lot of what you said, but I don't see a lot of point in pursuing it. We are talking past each other.

I appreciated our discussion of 1 Corinthians 5 and the way you participated in that thread. That kind of discussion might be more productive.