If there is something I did not address below, that you feel needs to be taken into consideration, feel free to PM me about it.
VIOLATION OF THE FOLLOWING RULES WILL GET YOU BANNED.
1) Theological discussion in this thread should not be contigent upon disproving or attacking another religion. I understand that comparative theology is common, and it is healthy, in my opinion, for providing a new perspective on your own religion. However, it's not acceptable to say, for example:
Quote:
The Trinity and the God/son thing was stolen from Babylonian religion. So you're pretty much worshiping something else other than the Christian God.
2) Somewhat related to #1, don't make value statements about religions that are not your own. You aren't a member of that religion, it's not your business to tell them how they believe or what they should believe. For example:
Quote:
Christians are worshiping other religions without knowing it.
Perhaps this poster had a good point about how other ancient near eastern mythos was similiar in some ways to the Christian mythos, but this should hardly be used as a basis to accuse Christians of being false in their beliefs.
3) We use source texts in our arguments. As mentioned on the guild home page, source texts are something like scripture or commentary on scripture. The internet, while being a valuable tool, can provide users with questionable information. Generally, try to avoid using wikipedia.org as a source (though sometimes it can be a good jumping-off place for finding sources). If you link to a source, be sure that others can find the author's name and credentials somewhere on the site. Those are important. Try your best to use sources that are from theology professors, religious leaders, historians, etc.
4) This will only apply to theological debate involving the Christian bible, but try not to use the King James Version (KJV). You may use the KJV to point out general scripture, but this version is somewhat irritating for scholars because it isn't translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew sources. It's taken from the Tyndale Bible, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate, which was copied by monks for centuries which resulted in some inaccuracies (you might want to look up why Michaelangelo's sculpture of Moses has horns), some of which were preserved in the KJV. Inaccuracies are not always a problem when it comes to the spiritual meaning of the text, and the KJV uses Shakespearan-era, flowery language, but when word meanings and exegesis are important, stick to other translations. (NRSV is what I use, but there are plenty of others out there you can turn to.)
5) If I ban you from the guild due to violation of the above rules, do not PM me about it. I will provide a reason when I ban you, so don't PM me asking why you were banned. I won't let you back into the guild, so bothering me isn't going to change my mind. Again, as I stated on the guild home page, this is my guild, so these are my rules.
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I hope I didn't seem too harsh, but I just wanted to make sure that there were definite ground rules from the outset, in order to avoid conflict and drama.
* It was due to his behavior in an ED thread -- normally I wouldn't regard behavior outside of the guild to be of any bearing on what goes on in the guild, and don't worry, I'm not Big Brother, out there trolling your posts, I just happened to stumble into the same thread he was in. It was a theology thread and his posts were violations of the ED rules, so I decided to be pre-emptive in banning him here.
