Calzaer

I think this is a very good point. I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge brighid's very nice answer to this point.

Anyway, I think it's a good point because it's very easy to look at II as a "Battered Infidel Support Group". Some people even use it that way overtly.

cheetah

This is tough, and I keep going back to the fact that IIDB has the right to do so. But, I know that's not what's at stake here, and what one has a right to do is not always the rigth thing to do. I still feel that the possibility that theists will intimidate posters is a greater harm to the mission than to not give a privilege to certain members based on their theism.

In some ways, I agree that this should be a "safe haven" and in some ways it should be a place to challenge oneself. In that case, I think certain fora could be designated as safe havens, places where theists cannot be moderators (maybe the same fora where preaching is not allowed). I think that the IIDB could still fulfill its mission in that way. I am not sure that not allowing theist moderators is against the mission, but I do think that allowing them could enhance the mission. I still personally feel there should be some fora where moderators should be only non-theists in order to aid the comfort of some of the more timid members.


Right.

Agreed, except again, I hope that a few of our many fora could be considered safe havens for non-theists. I think in those few fora, the opportunity for members to explore their secularism with other members without interruption is vital to the mission, as is being challenged and challenging others, like in real life.

So, to sum up, I think it is still moral, in the context of the IIDB's mission, but that to include theists could, if carefully done (as I suggest above ) enhance the mission. Does enhancing your mission make you more moral????

brighid

I think this a great idea and could go far to address the inequity I see (and others as well). I do think there are more appropriate forums where users would be more open to (and less hostile) to thiest moderation. I think EoG and E/C are two, perhaps even GRD. I do not think Secular Lifestyles and Support would be good, but I think that is obvious

Thank you for taking the time to wade through my long posts. It has been suggested (and not the first time) that I could benefit from a writing class that enhances my ability to be more concise Point is well received and taken!

Brighid

ManM

If I remember correctly, there used to be a theist free set of forums here. It was called "Freethinker's Lounge" or something like that. I suspect it has not gone away, but instead is hidden from view unless your username gets on the access list. Anyway, I always thought that was the "safe haven" of IIDB, or at least where those top secret IPU worship rituals took place. The rest of the forums were fair game for us badguys.

The Other Michael

Hello ManM,

That has been gone for months. Generally, every user in good standing can see all the fora, except for the conference rooms used for the administration of the board which are not visible in order to reduce the clutter on people's screens.

cheers,
Michael

Bill Snedden

...no (IMO).

It would seem to be clear that discrimination is not, per se, immoral. We don't consider it immoral to hire only nuclear phsyicists for jobs requiring knowledge of nuclear physics, to consider only female applicants as surrogate mothers, or to allow Christian churches to hire only Christians in ministerial positions. Where we make moral distinctions WRT discrimination is where there is no necessary connection between the object (the person) and subject (the position/job/club/etc) involved.

In the case of IIDB, if it is in fact the case that moderators are de facto supporters of the stated mission of the II, then that, it seems to me, establishes a necessary connection between non-belief and moderation and therefore establishes the morality of discrimination.

However, while it is arguable that the fora of IIDB began with this in mind (I'd argue that they did, and I've been around here quite a while), it might not really be the case anymore.

To be sure, there are some that seem to fit this description, but there are others that really don't. What does "Political Discussions" have necessarily to do with metaphysical naturalism? Why would we especially need a non-theist to moderate "Media and Popular Culture"? (There may be others, these are just two examples.)

All that to say that while I'm not convinced that a moral dilemma does exist, it seems to me that if it did, it could be eliminated by removing the automatic disqualification on those fora where support of the II mission statement isn't necessarily required.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

ManM

Michael,
I'm glad to hear that has disappeared. I'm sure it was a political nightmare for the gatekeepers of those forums.

Bill,
We don't consider it immoral to hire only nuclear physicists because only nuclear physicists can do nuclear physics. It is the same with female surrogate mothers. Furthermore, an atheist preaching the bible is a hypocrite. None of these are analogous to the situation here on IIDB. It is not a moderator's job to support a particular philosophical stance, but rather to maintain order and civility. Are you claiming that there is some intrinsic quality about theists that make them unable to do this? The only other justification I see for disqualifying theists is to preserve a philosophical bias in the moderation.

Daleth

Brighid,
You are really working hard here. Well done. Haven't even read through them all yet.

No. If that were the current reasoning upholding the rule, I wouldn't support it or consider it moral, because then it is just bigotry.

This isn't an emotional support community, like in AspenMama's "burly man" example. In an emotional support community, you need to make special rules for no other reason than that they protect your members emotionally. You expect your members to be in a particularly fragile state of mind. If the goals of iidb were to give emotional and educational support to ex-theists as they struggled to extract themselves from their theistic lifestyles, then the ban based on purely emotional grounds would be appropriate, and such a ban would currently be appropriate here in boards like SL&S. But overall, the goals of this community don't lead to an assumption of an emotionally fragile membership.

Dr Rick and maybe some others here have asked what's the harm to the theist. Maybe there is none. I don't know if there ever has been a theist who was a great member of this community and who felt slighted for not being asked to Moderate. If there were the harm would, I imagine, be pretty minor.

The harm, if any, would be to us... which sounds incredibly lame now that I've typed it, but I'll stick with it. A rule here upheld for predjudicial reasons encourages the continuance of those predjudicial beliefs. Since the community is founded on notions like freethinking, lending creedence to any form of predjudice... of making a decision without thinking... is counter to the goals. The goals, as I read them, support equality, learning, and growth. Prejudging people, OTOH, supports inequality, ignorance and stagnation.

Now I think I'll read the rest.

Dal

Bill Snedden

I think that you're assuming facts that are not in evidence. IF the purpose of the IIDB is to provide a forum in support of the II mission statement and IF moderators are expected to support that mission statement, THEN the job of a moderator at the IIDB is NOT limited to the characteristics you mention.

One could make the same argument in the case of an atheist minister. Surely he/she can read from the Bible and provide competent scholarly exegesis, no? From an intellectual standpoint, he/she could even provide Christian-worldview-based counselling and advice.

The issue of hypocrisy is moot (it would apply equally to the theist moderator); we recognize that Christian churches don't just want intellectual commitment, they want advocacy and we generally recognize that one cannot be a committed advocate of something he/she doesn't believe.

That's really the central question here, isn't it? Is the job of IIDB moderator defined as narrowly as you do above, or is there more to it? If the former, then there's no real reason why theists should not be considered (IMO) and if the latter, there's probably no moral dilemma.

Absolutely not, and I hope I've made that clear, above.

Well, again, that depends upon what's required of and desired from a moderator. If they are expected to advocate, or participate in II in a more general sense as well as moderate, then I think the IIDB policy disqualifying theists is a good one. Indeed, I can't imagine any theist who would desire to moderate under those terms.

"Philosophical bias", yes, but in "moderation," no. I would agree that we should desire no bias in moderation, but again it all goes to how narrowly or broadly we construe the actual responsibilities of a moderator. That's also why I agreed that it might make more sense to think of it on a forum-by-forum basis.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Toto

While there may be some invalid reasons to exclude theists from becoming moderators, there are valid ones.

The Internet Infidels has a stated purpose, which is to promote non-theism - not just religious tolerance, but non-belief. I do not see how a theist of any kind could get with this program. And I'm not sure why they would want to.

I am afraid that allowing a theist moderator would tend to blur the message, and II would become a version of the Unitarian Church. There is a place for Unitarians, but as a denomination they are not growing, in large part I think because they have such a blurred message.