This is a very welcome post. I read recently a description of the Catholic church as being "larger on the inside than on the outside." This Tardis concept goes for most isms.
Peter Sellick

Andrew- I hope that your insightful article starts a discourse on OLO that goes beyond the depressing sterility of the battle of the -isms. Unfortunately, the online community seems to have no common basis of thinking or feeling to use as foundation. Motivations seem to range from sincere inquiry to downright vandalism and cyber-bullying. How does one start to find a common basis with someone whose immediate response to informed opinion is to sling insults and revert to non sequiturs?

We seem to be torn between advocating an open-ness and inclusiveness that is at the edge of chaos or retreating into solipsistic in-groups that share our prejudices but are ultimately destroy both spirit and body.

Given this dilemma and the primitive state of our collective consciousness, I advocate that OLO takes a firm hand in filtering comments. The only filter that is required is that the contributions are substantially INFORMED opinion- that is,they are based on knowledge (justified true belief)rather than unsubstantiated insults, allegations and innuendo.

Now that's a challenge to all of us, isn't it?

This article is a welcome relief.
I echo the sentiments that the standard of debate (a very loose term in this context) needs to rise on OLO. The problem is Jedimaster, who is to who is to mediate?
Is there anyone who can claim to free enough of bias to be able to judge what is 'fair comment' and what is 'substantially INFORMED opinion'. I would not like to be the one to decide on what was to be allowed and what was not.
If we could do away with isms it would be a step in the right direction. Maybe some guidelines on valid and fallacious argument might also help.
There are many who do not seem to be able to accept that anyone has any right to any idea or opinion that does not fit into their particular ism. Someone might have a different idea or view on life, but that does not make them idiots or unworthy of having a view.
I find it hard work and frustrating trying to sort out who has something to contribute and those who just want to tear down, insult and abuse.
One of the hard things is that sometimes amongst the abuse of the post there is a small glimmer of hope that the writer has something to say. It is hard not to just reject a post just because of the name on the bottom.
It is indeed a challenge.
In the mean time I hope this article is read by all and the points taken on board.

Andrew makes some very good points. If we are offering opinions (it is impossible to debate online) some issues hit buttons and bring out the passion and poison in people. I will be the first to admit that my views are more tempered when speaking face to face with people. On the same token I have not experienced the same abuse face to face as I have on line. Which view is more honest?

I think our 'isms' do matter. Our isms should not stop us from living in harmony. I think even Boaz and Col have a drink together. We are probably mild compared to the debates in {Parliament).

The rise of Pauline Hanson was due to pc gone mad. By and large the media (dare i say secular) would label someone racist for expressing a different view. Many make out that either the left or right of politics have a mortgage on compassion which of course is a fallacy. Sure strong bias come through. Even some who are obviously highly educated are dumb enough to have opinions like Bush/Howard -bad, stupid etc Obama.Rudd -good. intelligent.

You might raise standards by censorship but you will prevent people from expressing what is in their hearts

This is good up to a point.

Unfortunately it reduces religion and by extension all of culture to a naive well meaning meat-body humanism.

Here we are altogether and aint life wonderful--utopia is just around the corner.

Profound questions and profound doings become almost impossible.

We have all been propaganized by the reductionist "culture" in which we live into making the assumption that we ARE the body, or hence by extension,that the physical universe is all there is. The presumption that we are the body seems obvious to us because we have been propagandized into it by all of our social media, beginning with mom and dad, as a method of survival in the context of bodily existence.

It is really a very naive and primitive presumption.

What could be more naive than identifying with the body, and by extension gross matter, only?
What could be less sophisticated?
Less intelligent?

We thus scratch our heads,or perhaps believe in "jesus" (which is now just another consoling consumerist icon/image), and wonder why there is so much suffering and that everything about our collective social condition seems to be getting worse and worse--which it is.

http://www.dabase.org/broken.htm

Plus Right Human Life and Materialist "Culture"

http://www.aboutadidam.org/newsletters/toc-february2004.html

It's all a bit... well, candy-floss, isn't it?

Anxious platitude follows reassuring banality with the regularity of a dripping tap.

"We hold our beliefs because they make sense of our experiences, and provide frameworks for organising them. They help us make decisions."

We also have regular meals because our bodies need nourishment, and mealtimes provide a framework for organising them. They help us stay alive.

I am sure we could unearth other equally staggering insights if we tried.

"In the end, I find that aspiration and adherence to values like respect, patience, compassion, justice, gentleness, and openness are much more accurate predictors of the person"

...than "isms"? Really? You do surprise me.

Breakthrough stuff, this.

Jedimaster kindly illustrates the article's crystalline pointlessness with his observation:

>>We seem to be torn between advocating an open-ness and inclusiveness that is at the edge of chaos or retreating into solipsistic in-groups that share our prejudices but are ultimately destroy both spirit and body<<

Yup. I think that has captured the rhythm nicely.

I particularly like the idea of "inclusiveness that is at the edge of chaos". Elegantly meaningless.

And all leading up to...

>>I advocate that OLO takes a firm hand in filtering comments. The only filter that is required is that the contributions are substantially INFORMED opinion- that is,they are based on knowledge (justified true belief)rather than unsubstantiated insults, allegations and innuendo.<<

How do you feel about "substantiated" insults, Jedimaster?