Netiquette for Faith Discussions

A while back, I wrote a post on “Etiquette for Interfaith Discussions”, which was meant as a sort of guide to discussing faith with people of different faiths.  As a person of alternative religious beliefs that lives in an area where proselytism seems to be as popular as my beach on a holiday weekend, I’ve seen a lot of in-person discussions of religion go down the toilet very quickly–even when two people have seemingly similar beliefs from an outside perspective.  Online, its even worse…even in communities of people with similar (or at least similarly alternative) beliefs.

So…I thought it might be a good idea to talk about extending the conversation about appropriate etiquette for discussions about religious and spiritual discussion.   The assumption here is that our goal in these sorts of conversations isn’t to piss people off, in which case, I think it goes without saying that all of the etiquette points in the previous post still stand, though some of them are more specific to direct interpersonal conversation than others, and should be adapted a bit.  If, of course, the goal is to piss people off without regard for furthering dialogue, disregard the following…

Responsibilities of the Writer: 

1. Know your audience.  As a writer, you should know who your audience is–its just sort of common sense that one needs to know who they are writing to, and what interests and perspectives readers might have, in order to appropriately address topics.  But part of knowing your targeted or expected audience is also knowing that some of them might just be curious drop-ins…  If your goal is to foster thought and discussion solely within one’s community, that’s fine (though a consideration of how they could be taken by others might be a good idea)…but if your goal is to spark discussions across communities (either sub-groups within the same faith group, or between faith groups), then perhaps its a good idea to see what your words feel like from an outside perspective and model them appropriately.
2. Strive for accuracy and honesty.  Try to emphasize when something is a personal opinion (albeit a hopefully educated one) as opposed to a fact-based statement.  Particularly when discussing contentious topics (in which case, try to acknowledge if not address different opinions) or in environments where you could be construed as a subject matter expert or a representative of a particular view.  If you know you are biased on a particular topic, ante up and admit it.
3. Write  with respect.  The bottom line here is to write with respect for one’s subject matter and one’s audience.  Sometimes that can be a quite difficult balance to achieve.  There are a number of ways to do this: cite sources, admit bias, use inclusive language, make ‘I’ statements, and overall…be kind–or at least as kind as possible if and when criticism is necessary.
4. Make it readable.  I admit, I’m totally guilty of tl;dr at times…and UAWA (using abbreviations with abandon–and yes, I totally made that one up as a joke), incredibly bad humor, and overuse of ellipses and parentheses. Look, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be able to be read and understood without too much difficulty.  If most people struggle to read it, there isn’t much of a point to have written it!  Things like format (hello, paragraphs!), punctuation and spelling, syntax and grammar matter, as does clarity and specificity in language (terminology matters!).  And for the love of all that you consider holy, use paragraphs–I won’t even bother to try to decipher a total wall of text, it hurts my eye balls and my brain.

Responsibilities of the Reader:

1. Know the audience of the writer.   Lets be honest here, writers write with a specific audience in mind.  So be mindful of whose internet home you are walking into.  Don’t jump down someone’s throat for disagreeing with you when you wandered into their site (this doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with them).  Religious beliefs are opinions, and a person that wanders into a community with different opinions from theirs should expect to disagree with them.  Don’t automatically take disagreement, even at a fundamental level of how your own beliefs are viewed, as a personal insult.
2. Read with an open mind and an open heart.  Try to see things from the writer’s perspective and experience.  You don’t have to agree with them, but try to see where they are coming from and why that background could lead them to see things as they do.  Don’t take a general opinion as a personal attack, even if that is how they feel…often people have opinions that they have absolutely no real world experience with (and usually those opinions are the most offensive ones!).  A decent person can still have a shitty opinion, so try to refrain from passing judgement on a person, instead of their ideas and reasoning.
3. Give some “benefit of the doubt” to the writer.  Writing well can be hard and writing well on hard topics can be even harder.  Sometimes people say things in a way that is not immediately clear what they mean, or they give insult where none is intended because the words they use are not understood in the same way they were meant to be delivered.  In light of an entire post, try not to take single comments out of context, unless they are an illustration of overall disagreement.  Unlike a face to face discussion, where a person has instant feedback and can see that a conversation is starting to go off track and clarify points or ask questions, internet discussions are dependent on when someone can get back to it (and a whole lot can go wrong in that time).  On the other hand, the key word here is some–some comments need to be challenged, whether it be for their sheer offensiveness, or because the author is someone that should know better (and if they don’t they need to be told), etc.

Responsibilities of the Responder/Commenter:

1. If you didn’t read it all, don’t comment/respond…9 times out of 10 I’m willing to bet it will leave you breaking my next “rule”.
2. Don’t be an ass.  A responder/commenter is both a reader and a writer and is responsible for behaving as both, the only additional duty you really have is to not be a jerk when you respond.  Ask yourself questions like “Will this contribute to the conversation?”, “Am I voicing a legitimate concern or critique that shows alternative points of view and furthers the discussion?”, “Do my comments get the author and other readers additional insight into the situation?” and “Would I say this to my mother/spouse/child/best friend?”.   If the answer to questions like those is “No”, then perhaps a rewording or rethinking of the comment is in order.

Pot, meet kettle…a rant

A couple years ago, I posted a note on Facebook (I think I had intended it to be a comment, but it was “too long”) and ended up entitling it REALigion…it went something like this:

I don’t care what name (or names) you use to address what you believe to be divine in this universe, what books you read, holidays you celebrate, or what dogma (or lack of it) you claim represents that power; I care that you treat others with the same compassion and respect that you would wish for yourself from someone whose beliefs are different from your own.

I think I originally typed this in response to the sort of religious bickering that seems to cycle ’round and ’round…and after reading various FB feeds, news articles, blogs, and (worse) the comments, I think its time to break out the sentiment again.

This time, I even feel compelled to rant a bit…so beware (particularly since politics=religion seems to be a common theme this election cycle).

A message to (some) Pagans about Christianity:

Look, there isn’t some secret Christian agenda to ruin your life.  In fact, there isn’t even some Christian Religion™ to have an agenda, secret or otherwise, to ruin your life.  Because Christianity is a monotheistic religion, not a monolithic one.

There are some 38,000 religious denominations under the Christian umbrella, and some of them have about as much in common as Wicca and Asatru (compare the Christians that come to this church with congregants of Divine Science or with Mormons or members of the United Church of Christ–whom, if you aren’t familiar with them, marry h0mosexual couples in their church).  Certainly they all have one thing in common–they all do religion with Jesus.  But even then, there is rampant disagreement.  Some denominations believe in the Trinity (others do not), some believe in universal salvation (others do not), some believe in the Bible as the literal word of God (and others do not)…and these are the Big Ticket Items!  There are even more differences in terms of who can take communion, on baptism (infant vs adult) vs, Christenings and dedications, on who can marry, on the roles of women or of homosexuals, on proselytizing, on evolution, on politics, on so many things I can’t even list them all.

So please, stop lumping all Christians together.  It is annoying (not to mention inaccurate).  There is no such thing as the Christian Church (unless you are specifically talking about a church denomination also known as the Disciples of Christ), and all it does in the end is make you look like a bit of an ass. Sometimes it even makes you look bitter.  And looking like a bitter ass isn’t really proper interfaith etiquette…

If you want to be taken seriously in a world of religious plurality, then you need to take ALL religions seriously, even the one’s you don’t like because of their most extreme members.  Not all Christians are the Westboro Baptist Church, or Ted Haggarty, or the family that sent their middle schooler to proselytize to The Hubby at White Castle, or the Jesus Camp lady, or pedophile priests…in fact, most Christians are just like you or me.

All of us, just trying to live our lives in the best ways we can.

A message to some Christians from a Pagan:

Look, you belong to a monotheistic religion, not a monolithic one.  There are some 38,000 religious denominations under the Christian umbrella, and you can’t even all agree on what makes you Christians, much the finer (and not so fine) points of your theology.  So please, stop pushing your denomination (or just your opinion) as The Christian Thing To Do™ instead of YOUR thing to do based on YOUR understanding and interpretation of YOUR religion.  Because I’ll tell you now, it makes it really easy for people to hate on you, when…well, just look at the Westboro Baptist Church, or the actions of Ted Haggarty, or the family that sent their middle schooler to proselytize to The Hubby at White Castle, or the Jesus Camp lady, or the Catholic church’s issues with pedophiles, or…well, you get the idea.  And I’d like to continue thinking that most Christians aren’t crazy or hypocrites or crazy hypocrites.

From the PR standpoint of an outsider–the best way to look like a good Christian is to just be a good person first.  Loving your neighbor sometimes means leaving them alone when their religious beliefs are different than yours…or their sexuality, their gender, their skin tone, their income level, or the amount of sin you think they live in (wasn’t it Jesus that said something about casting the first stone?).  And voting to deny people the ability to live in the same freedom that you enjoy–definitely not loving your neighbor to discriminate like that (after all, Jesus himself healed the daughter of a Canaanite…or a Greek, depending on the author).

From the perspective of the adherent of another religious outlook, please have the decency, respect, and intelligence (if not for me personally, but at least for the free will you probably should believe that your deity gave me) to realize that I’m happy not being Christian–I (like most Pagans, or non-Christian Unitarian Universalists for that matter) was at one time Christian, I already know what you are selling, and I have no desire to buy into that brand of faith again.  And, if by some chance you think you are that extra-special proselytizer that would change my mind, think again.  I am surrounded by thousands of denominations IRL and online, and I am savvy enough to find one that would appeal to me without your assistance, were I interested.  Oh, and if you are that extra-special sort of proselytizer thinks the threat of the Horrors of Eternal Damnation™ is an effective conversion technique, really–don’t bother.  I’ve calculated the odds, and a God that uses intimidation tactics isn’t worthy of my time or energy.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m happy that you, whomever you are (and however much I might disagree with your theological opintion), have found a path that brings you peace and meaning.  But so have I.   And I’m pretty sure that at the end of the day, we aren’t all that different.

All of us, trying to live our lives in the best ways we can.

Stories for the Season

And praise to the sun, whose light sparks all life.

from A Return of the Light by Carolyn Edwards

We have been careful to fill our children’s lives and heads with stories.  We have not cared so much about the accuracy of said stories, so much as the message.  In general, some of them may be true, while others tell a greater truth than literalism could ever hope to reflect–sometimes, the greatest truths are not really true at all.  Because we often discuss the nature of truth and stories and how something doesn’t need to be “real” to be “important”, and that “belief” does not make something “real” I have never really worried about the slippery nature of truth.  For a four year old, Chickadee has shown herself to be quite wise on the subject…and Sharkbait doesn’t really care yet, as long as its a good story.  Like the sorts of stories that we ensure that our children read and hear and watch, the collective mythology of the modern winter holiday season spans the length and breadth of human history.  As parents, we have done our best to embrace as many of those stories that embrace the spirit of hope and joy, of charity and blessing, of new beginnings and a returning of the light as possible.  So our stories for the season are a mix of traditional and modern, of Christian and Jewish and Pagan and “none of the above”.

At times the song is very soft, and scarcely can be heard above the din and clatter of our lives. But when Yule comes, it rises and it swells in memory of that night when the Sun heard, and light and life were spared.

And so do we, upon this longest night, gather with those we love and who love us, and stand upon the body of slumbering Earth, and light the log with last year’s coal, and lift our voices soaring to the Sun, and join the song that first was sung so very long ago.

We sing our thanks to those who went before, and sing our fondest wish to those who come behind. We bask in the returning light of reawakened hope, and welcome Yule.

from The First Song: A tale of how Yule got its name, by Andras Corban Arthen, © 1994, The EarthSpirit Community (on This Winters Night by MotherTongue)

We have used these stories to create our own traditions.  Traditions that will teach our children not only our own beliefs, but about the beliefs of others.  Traditions that will fill the silence they would hear otherwise.  I was recently reminded in a post from a blogger I follow that being raised without hatred for something doesn’t equal being raised to have tolerance for it.  As she said in one of the most powerful lessons I think a parent can learn and teach, “When you leave a void like that, someone or something will eventually fill it in.” So, tonight we talked about Hanukkah, we told the story of Tante Golda and The Miracle of Potato Latkes, and we ate some potato latkes . And on Christmas Eve, Chickadee will be taking part in our UU congregation’s traditional Christmas pageant this year as the nativity’s drummer girl (we thought about letting Sharkbait be a lamb, but he’s not terribly good at staying in one spot for an extended period of time).  This week we will read both Twas the Night Before Christmas and Twas the Night Before Yule for our bedtime stories.  At the Solstice, we will have our yearly family Yule ritual and afterwards we will do our reading of Chickadee’s favorite story of the Yule Fairies and the Baby Sun King (Daddy plays the part of Brown Knobby).

The goal is that hopefully our children will not only celebrate their own faith, but that they will develop a respect for the beauty of the stories of other faith traditions as well.  And that one day, when they are confronted by the terrible ugliness that exists in how some individuals choose to interpret express those traditions, that beauty will have taken root and filled the void where silence would have done a disservice.

Some Pagan and Pagan-ish Books and Stories for the Season:
The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas by John Matthews*
Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide by Christian Ratsch*
Yule: A Celebration of Light and Warmth by Dorothy Morrison*
The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice by Carolyn Edwards
The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer
The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson
A Children’s Yule Story @ PaganDad
*indicates that the book is geared towards adults

Etiquette for Interfaith Discussion

With much help from (and much thanks to) the folks at the Pagan Forum and CafeMom’s Religious Debate section for their constructive ideas, I’ve been working on list of behaviors and attitudes to reduce conflict over religious beliefs between individuals.  Think of this as Miss Manners putting the smackdown on multi-faith and interfaith discussions and debates!

Thalassa’s Etiquette Guidelines for Interfaith Discussion

1.) If someone asks about your religious beliefs, share (respectfully and with compassion). If they don’t ask, don’t assume that sharing will be welcome and go out of your way to do so.

2.) If you feel compelled to ask someone else as a way to spark a discussion about their beliefs, back off if they aren’t interested.

3.) Make sure the setting is appropriate for the discussion so neither party will feel uncomfortable.

4.) Don’t act like your truth is everyone’s truth–it isn’t, because if it were, there wouldn’t be a conversation on the matter. When expressing your beliefs, use I-statements to express your personal beliefs.

5.) Refrain from using absolute or exclusive language, but don’t assume that absolute or exclusive statements are made with negative intent.

6.) If you are in a mutual discussion of beliefs, don’t use your theological opinion as a tool for condemnation or insult.

7.) Realize that the people who vocally use their beliefs about religion as an excuse to be a jerk are louder than those that don’t, if you want to be a good ambassador for your faith, act your ideals, and even share them, but don’t preach them.

8.) Language is imprecise–different religious and denominations have differing terminology; understand the limits of your religious literacy and ask for clarification if you are unsure of one’s meaning.

9.) Disagreement is not an automatic insult or attack. Try to refrain from taking offense to comments that may be well-intended, but poorly phrased.

10.) Courteously and constructively correct misinformation. Do not get drawn into an argument (as opposed to a debate). Be polite, even when the other person is not.

11.) If things start going badly, be the adult and back off. When this happens, don’t wait for the other person – do it first. If you are a person that has to have the last word, remember that walking away with dignity while the other person brays like an ass is its own last word.