Post 1 of 2
The person who originally came up with these posted under the name Swart in case it is not that obvious. He gathered these from various places on the net, all religious discussion forums, mainly geared towards either Christianity or Mormonism or both. I have tried to alter them to make them fit RF as much as possible while keeping as much of the original content as I can. The blue are my comments.
Swart's 1st Law
To participate here you need three things:
- A Grip
- A Life
- A Thick Skin
If you don't have both 1 & 2, lurk but don't post. If you don't have #3, don't even bother lurking.
Swart's 2nd Law
Make it logical.
Many of the arguments on this forum consist of
logical fallacies. It helps to have an understanding of common logical fallacies before posting. That way, not only are you less likely to make one, when some describes your argument as
tu quoque, you'll know what they mean.
Swart's 3rd Law
References. References. References.
Did I say something about references? If you post something that isn't original from you, you MUST provide a reference. Otherwise you are plagiarising. If you are copying from a secondary source, simply pasting the primary sources is not sufficient. You must post the secondary source as well, otherwise it means you are attempting to pass off another persons research as your own.
You will find that Christianity, and Abrahamic faiths, are discussed here quite a bit more when compared to other individual faiths. So the following is still keeping within the spirit of RF.
CADAN'S THREE RULES OF DISCUSSING CHRISTIANITY ON THE INTERNET
1. Godwin's Law is incorporated by reference.
2. Whoever knows the most Greek wins.
3. In the end, it all comes down to ecclesiology.
Lee's Two Laws of Posting:
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
- If you haven't read this forum for at least 2 weeks, do not post anything.
- If you don't understand the reason for the first law, make it at least a month.
[/FONT]
Bowie's Corollary: [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]Make it a month, anyway.
Woods' Theory of Wisdom:[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]A wise poster does not start a new topic until s/he has contributed something _of value_ to an existing topic.
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
The origional of these rules contained this:
[/FONT]
Bowie's Inequality Constant: [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]Utah != Mormon (Utah is not equal to Mormon)
This is the perfect place to incorporate Quagmire's OP.
Quagmire's Postulate:
1. Not everybody here is a theist.
2. Not every theist here is a Christian.
3. Not every Christian here is a YEC who reads the Bible literally or considers it the infallible word of God.
4. Not every YEC here spends his off time standing on street corners yelling at passers-by that they're going to hell.
5. Most of our regular members did not get their world view, theology, or understanding of history out of a Chic tract.
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]The Law of Assumption of Peculiarity
Just say you've read a book or pamphlet on Fundamentalism, seen a movie, heard a tape etc. and you're itching to unburden yourself on this forum and prove to everybody else they're totally and utterly wrong.
Congratulations! You've just succumbed to the fallacy of an
assumption of peculiarity. Remember that
your source of information is what is known as a
secondary source. Chances are that any secondary source has been hashed out on this forum within five minutes of publication if not earlier. In all likelihood, it's been discussed several dozen times.
So, to avoid the possibility of proving yourself to be a clueless newbie, check through previous threads to see what discussions have already taken place.
Remember: Google is your friend.
Swart's Laws of Thread Titles
Thread titles give away a lot. The first rule is to not make basic spelling and grammar mistakes. That sort of thing says a lot about what you have to contribute. Thread titles like "Why x-ians are stuppid!!!!11" is not going to attract much attention other than amusement.
The Second Law is not to talk with authourity about a subject you know little about. I was Presbyterian until the age of twelve before I was baptised as a LDS. That doesn't make me an expert about all things Presbyterian. Sure I can comment about my experiences, impressions, understandings at that time, however that doesn't mean I can tell a Presbyterian minister what they
really believe.
The Third Law is to not post mindless thread titles. The Fourth is not to respond to them.
The Law of Charity
When presenting any material that is negative about another's beliefs. Be sure to present it in the most
positive light. That way you can critique from a position of strength without being cast as polemic.
If you can explain the beliefs of another person to
their satisfaction, then you are in a position to critique those beliefs.
Stendahl's Rules
(source: FAIRLDS)
These were written by Lutheran Theologian Krister Stendahl as a guideline for critiquing any faith different from your own:
Rule One: Ask Adherents what they believe, not their enemies
The first rule was that when you want to learn about a religion you should ask the adherents to that religion and not its enemies. Now that seems fairly obvious but it is ignored an awful lot.
Rule Two: Don't compare your best with their worst
The second rule was a little more interesting. Don't compare your best with their worst, which is often done. You know, we Christians believe in the ideal of loving everyone, but the Muslims, look at those terrorists in Algeria. What you do is take the worst example of the other guy's religion and compare it to the ideal, almost never reached in your religion and that's apples and oranges, right? If you are going to compare terrorists, you should compare Christian terrorists with Muslim terrorists. If you are going to compare ideals, you should compare the ideal in the other faith with the ideal in your faith. If you are going to compare your saint to something in their religion, find one of their saints and compare them. That's the only fair way to do it.
Rule Three: Leave room for Holy Envy
The third one, I think, is even more interesting. His principle was [to] leave room for what he called "holy envy." By holy envy, he intended the idea of looking at another faith and saying, you know, there is something in this other religious tradition that I really envy. I value it. I wish we had it. I can learn something from it.
