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"As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or
by stakkur 5y ago
"As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?"
Has Paul never actually read HN or any JS discussion online? Or any forum, really?
Case study: my wife, who enjoys spinning wool, watched a (metaphorical) knock-down, drag-out argument about sheep variations on a spinning forum. Just before a user was banned, it had devolved into some very creative swearing and threats to kill sheep in another poster's geographic area.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> “As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?” > Has Paul never actually read HN or any JS discussion online? Or any forum, really? Yeah, this is one of those things that I cannot imagine anyone having sufficient experience with religious discussions online to make the initial observation also having so little experience with discussing literally anything else online to suggest that it was somehow unique to religion. I mean, there's a reason Godwin's Law is scoped to online discussions generally, not any particular subject matter.
- skeeter2020 5y agoUsually attributed to academia but applicable to any situation where people personally identify with very specific aspects of the community: The reason the in-fighting is so viscous is because the stakes are so low. When you're on the outside it seems very trivial; when you're on the inside it's the most important thing in your world.