michaelr,

I truly gently suggest that is throwing the baby out with the bath.

Change is most likely to occur when it comes from within, as well as from without. As a public servant who has always worked within the "system", I fully see and endorse the value of the "gadflies" outside of the system, (regardless of what the system, beaurocracy, power structure may be -church, large corporation, or government.) I also fully endorse and know the value of those working within the system to serve and operationalize the core values and mission of the service organization, sometimes with the support of the organization, sometimes in spite of the organization, and in every shade in between.

I tend to agree with Joe that there are a lot of posts that indiscriminately bash Christians on the threads that arise about religion and diety. However, I suspect that an analysis of those posts, and of the posters to the threads that deal with these issues would reveal that a relatively small number of Mudcat members tend to post to them, regardless of position.    If one focuses on those threads, there is a lot of knee-jerk bashing of all Christians (actually, of all religion.) But those bashing posts are made by a small number of the people who regularly post to Mudcat.

My impression is that both believers and non-believers who frequently post to these thread are in "emotion mind" and are reactionary instead of responsive when they post. The same is true on other "hot topic" threads. People (the world over) tend to mistake belief for fact, and to let emotion mind drive the bus. Because of my own upbringing and struggle to overcome the effects of fundamentalist and cultural indoctrination, my initial gut reaction to postings that state religious and spiritual beliefs as fact is irritation and adversarial (sp?) refutation. That is my problem. It is then my responsibility to own my emotional reactivity, and change out the lens distorted by my own emotional experiences for a lens less distorting before I react.

All a very long-winded way of saying I am responsible for what I post, and responsible for my reactions to what I post.   The Mods are not responsible for my behavior on line.

The Mods are responsible for carrying out Max's philosophy regarding self-policing, and therefore moderate with a very light hand. It is ludicrous(sp) to me, given the parameters Max has articulated, that people hold the mods. responsible for the behavior of themselves or others beyond a very limited mandate.