why avoid questions about your personal faith?

I think if you are someone who can't handle their beliefs questioned, then simply don't debate about it, you really need to question why you feel that way.

psychoslice said:

I think there is much more chance of the revers happening, but yea it would be a traumatic experience.

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Your not exactly an unbiased party to judge probabilities on the matter. Besides, probability is not really applicable to the nature of reality.

Darkness said:

Your not exactly an unbiased party to judge probabilities on the matter. Besides, probability is not really applicable to the nature of reality.

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And is that your probability?

kloth said:

I notice many religious people will speak for even complete strangers (or the masses) about how they think, feel and/or react when it comes to other peoples religious faith beliefs.
I especially notice that on these forums. often if you ask someone a direct question about their personal faith, they avoid the question by answering for other people, and not themselves at all.
for instance if I make a thread asking "what made you convert?"
people will often answer by saying something like "I think most people convert because...." and so on.
I'm just curious is all. you can answer if you want, it's up to you. thanks.

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Because I don't have a religious faith belief of my own but I'm bored and want to join the conversation. Human psychology fascinates me, and the psychology of religion is no different.

If you ask me about my ethical or political beliefs, I'll talk your ear off, as I'm sure you can see from pretty much every thread I'm ever involved in.

kloth said:

1. I don't see why getting personal to some extent is a problem on a forums.

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Well, it's not. My list was intended to illuminate examples of situations where I may avoid getting personal because it doesn't feel appropriate. I put the little things below there to attempt to clarify when and why this can be a problem. When discussing a topic (and especially so for debates), it's sometimes bad form to make the argument personal. Specifically, when you're not critiquing the ideas, you're criticizing the person; that's ad hominem. And it's also true that personal anecdotes can carry very little weight of evidence in some discussions (again, especially for debates). Consider all these "debate the existence of gods" threads. If anyone walks into one of those threads with a personal story about how they directly experienced the gods, what weight-of-evidence is that going to be given? In this post-enlightenment, data-obsessed age, unless you can stick it on a petri dish and ANOVA it, your personal evidence gets dismissed. Why bother sharing personal stories in threads that set standards that your personal stories can't possibly scathe anyway? Save it for the DIRs, or the forum sections where it's more appropriate.

kloth said:

2. I understand. but then why be here to begin with then?

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Heh, again, my list was intended to illuminate reasons why I may avoid getting personal. When I first wrote this item, I originally had a line in there comparing asking about religion to asking about someone's sex life. Certain questions and details about our lives are just not others' business, but that doesn't mean there aren't other things that we are willing to share.

kloth said:

3. well if people don't reply to my thread or post then whatever, but this is only about those who do reply.

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I'm not sure I conveyed myself correctly here. There are sometimes threads I have interest in responding to, but really can't respond to from a personal standpoint because it doesn't apply well to me or I don't have something personal to share. In that case I might forward observations of things that do apply to the topic at hand, but aren't personal. It might still be interesting, in spite of it not pertaining to me directly, right?

kloth said:

5. well I think if people are gonna talk about such a serious topic of religion, then you should be prepared to roll with the punches.

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To an extent, sure. However, I don't think this is an excuse to be a jerk and a bully by throwing punches in the first place. That kind of conduct is also counter to what RF is about.

kloth said:

6. well if you're gonna have a pessimistic view like that, then why talk to anyone in person or on the net about faith at all? maybe you don't need others for your faith to grow, but how do you know there isn't someone who needs you?

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Hah, I find it very interesting that you interpreted that section as indicative of pessimism. To me, its an exercise in humility, and that I don't expect everybody I meet or engage with to think I'm incredibly, amazingly important. I can't manage to be that egotistical. I focus on ideas. If someone actually focuses on me, personally, I ... well, I get a bit scared, to be honest. Because seriously, I'm not important. And if you think I actually am, I'll start blushing and flubbering my words.

This is a good observation, nonetheless. Perhaps one I should keep in mind somewhat more often.

kloth said:

what's the point of being on a religious forums if you're going to avoid discussing your faith? but more importantly, how do you know most people get bored with hearing this talk?

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Because, my friend, when ever I get involved in any discussion - unless I troll the thread to hell and back, people will usually reply to everybody else and fully ignore me, so what is the point?

RF has become my own personal 'blogging forum'.

kloth said:

I notice many religious people will speak for even complete strangers (or the masses) about how they think, feel and/or react when it comes to other peoples religious faith beliefs.
I especially notice that on these forums. often if you ask someone a direct question about their personal faith, they avoid the question by answering for other people, and not themselves at all.
for instance if I make a thread asking "what made you convert?"
people will often answer by saying something like "I think most people convert because...." and so on.
I'm just curious is all. you can answer if you want, it's up to you. thanks.

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I may have done this before for many reasons: 1. I don't like to get too personal. 2. I don't think the way I do things is the way that most people will do them, and/or 3. I feel as though a more general answer would be more appropriate in a given question.

I invite discussion about my personal faith but offline no one really seems interested though.

I'm definitely guilty of doing that at times, though usually more in real life than on these forums. On these forums, I'm very straight-forward with my personal faith, but when I'm having a conversation with people outside of these forums, I'm very rarely open about my beliefs, because I fear the judgement that might come from them being so very different than those of my friends.

That said, I'm sure I've done this on the forums here, too, but for different reasons. Sometimes I just want to join in on a conversation, but the way the topic is worded, it doesn't exactly apply to my beliefs. So I try to voice an observation that isn't related to my own faith.

...Sometimes I just like playing the devil's advocate, too.