Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?

No time (when is there ever these days?) to get deeply involved at the moment, but just to say that I fully support Mod in his responses now and then. Maybe it is my emotionally-challenged autistic streak, but I see and saw it exactly as Mod sees it (or as well as I can ascertain from his words) I'll try to get round to explaining why later, but the gist is that if there is one place where bigotry should not be censored but exposed and ridiculed - repeatedly - for all to see, it is here at EvC.In terms of the cull, I hated it and still hate its impact. Berb wasn't the most prolific poster (says I) but he made a real impact on me, and the loss of him and the others is still felt.

Christians often bring up the philosophical trappings of moral relativism, and NJ seemed to be no exception. They seem to think that you can really corral the atheists with it. One could even argue that his infatuation was more with moral relativism versus moral absolutes, based on my readings, than about homosexuality. It seems that he used gay marriage and moral relativism as a way to prove that allowing for it means allowing everything because their is no way to morally distinguish one taboo thing from another.

100% spot on. Most evangelicals live and breathe this sentiment, and the idea that you can reason it out of them with a mere 10-20 repetitions of the same logical argument is laughable. This is what I couldn't understand at the time - "NJ is an evangelical Christian - what else do you expect???"Hmmm, and I wonder where they get the idea...

Someone once writes: ​ If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you. If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal. If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

The fact that with our shared heritage we see this exactly the same way gives me hope that I'm not just stupid and blind in failing to see what Crash, Berb, Dan, and Rrhain were seeing... Edited by cavediver, : typos

Where did this happen? Once I see it, I will happily concede that NJ was wholly out of order and deserving of the sanctions suggested. I haven't seen it - which is why I hold my current views - but I am not suggesting it does not exist.As a start, it does *not* happen in either of Dan's examples to which you have refered: In the first thread mentioned, Berb does not participate. And in the second, his only contributions are to respond to NJ.

Your rewording of NJ's quotes are sufficiently distorting towards your own interpretation that I cannot accept them as part of your argument. If NJ's words are so obvious in their intent then they will speak for themselves. Again, you are supposed to be convincing me that his words are purposely inflammatory. Substituting your own purposely inflammatory words based on your own interpretation is not going to convince me, especially when you follow it with a claim that I am defending these words that you yourself have authored. You seem to be doing everything possible to read everything NJ said in as negative a light as possible. This is not helping me see it your way. And now you've completely lost me. There are other interpretations of what NJ said. And given how supposedly intelligent and cunning is NJ, how am I then supposed to accept that with no good reason whatsoever, he leaps to the conclusion that you, Dan, and Taz are gay?

I do, regularly And nine times out of ten, they apologise and give me more business than I was expecting

Sounds like you need some of my super expensive consulting services

Even if it's not true, it should be

Here's the fun bit Initially I thought you were a Christian troll - despite your claims that you weren't, too many phrases, nuances, and biases were blatently evangelical in origin - but even more so, you reminded me so much of NJ. Not that I thought you were NJ, but the similarity was enough for me to know that there was more to you than the non-theist you were presenting...Welcome back

Yeah, well I had to differentiate myself in the marketplace - and as consulting is always expensive, the only real option was to be *super* expensive. And if you're paying THAT much for your consulting, just imagine how good it must be!

You do realise that you've managed to derail yet another thread...?

You couldn't make this stuff up... I suggest we take the whole 3 year saga to the stage, and we could get Rrhain to play NJ/Hyro...*ducks*

And I would say no. NJ repeatedly pursued a controversial topic, that at times involved Berb because Berb would involve himself on account of him being offended by what NJ was discussing, and NJ followed Berb to a thread on account of Berb discussing that very situation. And it was not the language that was found offensive, it was the actual content of the topic under discussion. As Hyro has articulated, he could not change the language without changing the actual argument. As far as I am concerned, this is the bleedin' obvious. Suggest the language be changed so that the topic can be discussed without causing offense. In our historic case, it appears that the moderators had the intelligence to realise that it was not the language but the actual content that was causing offense, and thus no such suggestion could be made.

And I see no conflict between what I have just written and what Hyro has written. Do you?

Sure - he may be using euphamistic language but offensive content. And just because the content is deemed offensive by some, does not mean that it should not be discussed and requires moderator intervention.

Probably, but it will have to wait as my pint is on the bar, and I'm still 50yds away in the office...