Love this guide!I’d save myself a lot of needless arguments (notice I don’t say “discussion”) if I just asked that first question and when they say “no” I can walk away.

Hey, What’s up?Great swaths of posts seem to have disappeared from different threads today. I didn’t participate in, or even read, all of them. But the ones I did see didn’t appear to me to have violated the TOS, so I’m just curious why so many conversations seemed to have been vaporized.
And re the original topic, I don’t debate Christians. But I do like (old school) gospel music.

A commenter was banned for breaking the Terms of ServiceWhen that happens, all their comments and any responses to those comments by others are no longer visible.

Thanks for the reply.

mistakes were made [but not by me]by carol tavris and elliot aronson is a book i’m listening to on my ipod this week.  it talks about the reason we made lame excuses for our bad behavior or decisions.  it is about cognitive dissonance, that uncomfortable uh-oh feeling you get inside when a belief is challenged with facts and you realize you might be wrong.  confirmation bias, basically using any material that proves you are right, comes into play.  so it depends how strongly your identity is tied up with being right how strongly you will resist recognizing your belief is wrong.  it is why district attorneys won’t look at evidence that proves a person innocent that they have convicted.  it is too big to accept, psychologically that you just screwed up a person’s life with your error.  you see yourself as a good and competent person and good people don’t send the innocent to jail.  do you stick with it no matter how much evidence is given or do you admit you were wrong?  same with religious folks that cling to faith when absolutely no archeology, no science can back up their beliefs.  the pain of that uncomfortable feeling is cognititve dissonance and ‘we’ will do something to relieve the feeling.  i’m only half way through the book.  i hope to learn how to have the disipline to not argue with someone that has decided to stick with their lie.  my ego of ‘being right’ and their ego of ‘being right’.  if someone isn’t interested in how i came to my view, if they aren’t asking questions, that’s my clue it will be unproductive.

Excellent! Nice flow chart!!!  

ExampleFor those who might have read the offending posts and not perceived their breach of TOS, it might be helpful to at least mention the violator’s screen/blog name and what the violation was. I don’t mean that in a punitive way, but by way of an example of posting behavior to avoid.
Just a suggestion — I tend to get confused when people and their posts just disappear without explanation. And I mean that generically — I have no idea about (and no connection with) whom the person involved in this instance is and have not read carefully enough to notice the missing comments.

Great Flow ChartAs a Christian, I can use this to stop a whole lot of arguments with “Fire and Brimstone” folks.  I am of the liberal wing of the faith, so this works for me too.

The banned person published personal informationabout another commenter who uses a pseudonym.

Why is Christian put in scare quotes?The No True Christian Scotsman fallacy seems to be in very long supply around here.

While I appreciate this, and in the main support it as a guideline,The second “rule” is, quite frankly, absurd. A person has the right to have multiple logical supports for a position, and if one is invalidated, this does not invalidate all others.
Example (not necessarily true of any specific individual):
Person X supports application of supply-side economics for three reasons.
The 1st reason is that economic theory indicates that it should work if applied.
The 2nd reason is that Reagan used it to make America prosper.
The 3rd reason is that it is, to their mind, more “just” that demand-side economics.
Given that the first reason is accurate (neoclassical economic theory does indeed indicate that supply-side economics should work, as far back as Say’s Law), and that the third is purely a subjective matter of opinion, the only demonstrably false reason is the second. To say that the failure of the second reason invalidates any attempt to utilise the first and third is, simply, arrogant and illogical.
One can argue against the first and third reasons (by pointing out the many holes in the neoclassical economic theory supporting supply-side economics and by illustrating the inherently unjust nature of supply-side economics, respectively); however, to prohibit them being brought forward in the first instance is simply an attempt to shut down the discussion.
By the way: I do not support supply-side economics in any way, shape or form, and frequently find myself defending my opinions against it.