**ALL MEMBERS** The recent surge in Hatred, Racism, and Sheer Stupidity STOPS NOW.

reply to post by Destinyone

Well, in the meantime, I put it in my signature.

Originally posted by Crakeur
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

wow, what a load.

a person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc.

that's an apologist.

so, a muslim apologist is someone who defends the muslim faith.

Yes. Quite so. A perfectly reasonable, proper, civil, . . . can be flattering term.

reply to post by Destinyone


We'll have a mass u2u/PM out this evening....

Springer...

Originally posted by Springer
reply to post by Jameela

 

And as long as your intent is to share the truth in a civil, respectable manner (and your posting history supports that assertion) you will never have a problem here. Neither will anyone else of any other religious background or belief.

It's those who seek to "preach" or "pontificate" with no interest in civil discourse or debate because they "know" they are right, that will have issues here. Those who seek to sow intolerance, hate, racism or any other form of ignorance will have an issue too.

We don't do ignorance here, at least we try our dead level best to abolish it. I want to be clear, opinions we don't agree with are not "ignorant" based on that singular criteria, that doesn't fly either.

Springer...

lol, I could care less to preach anything!

The only thing that I do care about is the hope that we wont see a WW3 and that ignorance is not passed off as truth.

I have fallen for the baiting before, and said things when I was angry before, but I really do try not to! Although I am certain I am not alone here.

Originally posted by neformore
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

How does someone being knowledgeable of a faith make them an "apologist"?

Wouldn't it make them a scholar?

It depends on the context.

It can often be used in a flattering way implying a degree of scholarship not in fact there.

However, it can also be commonly used merely to describe someone who frequently speaks up in behalf of their belief system or whatever the topic is that they are defending or propounding.

reply to post by BO XIAN

It's a common professional, slightly technical term but also a fairly common term in the culture in general.
Basically, it means a proponent who is able to some degree of skill to articulate the reasons for belief in
.../... Islam.

Muslim apologists?

I'm not real sure that the Islamic apologists are more than 0.00000000000000000001% convincing, to me.

The tiresome hollow rants; the inaccuraces about Christianity and history; the rationalizations of abundant Muslim behavior; the rampant denials of broadly video'd public facts . . . are beyond hysterically laughable.

Your two definitions don't match.

When in doubt have a mod check it out

Are you a jingle writer?

I think you came up with a new ATS tagline.

Originally posted by BO XIAN
reply to post by Springer

Some of your mods are quite perceptive and understand where I'm coming from in my personality and my values and my Christianity quite well. And not only the seemingly very few Christian mods seem to understand me well.

Others seem to have absolutely NO CLUE about me and persistently BLACKWASH me up one side and down the other . . . SEEMINGLY looking for whatever excuse they can to delete a post or somehow otherwise hinder my postings of my perspectives and values.

Forgive me for pointing this out, but the staff are not here to pander to your personal ego.

The board staff are here to make sure the sites T&C are enforced.

Its not a question of "you"

Its a question of the T&C.

reply to post by BO XIAN


your definitions had nothing to do with what I posted.

what you did was make up a definition, to make your comments seem less barbed when, in reality, calling someone a muslim apologist is nowhere near the same as calling them a scholar, as you imply in your rather silly definition of the word apologist.


oddly enough, your attempt at amending the dictionary was a blaring example of the issues being discussed in the opening post.

thanks for that.

reply to post by neformore


PRECISELY.

Springer...

I couldn't agree more, ATS should definitely distance itself from projected hate, but I feel like the community will suffer because of it. If it can be evenly applied in all situations, it will have an effect that is nothing short of castration, but I honestly do not believe that it can be applied evenly. I would hate for ATS to be discredited by all of the senseless posts, or worse, to be castigated because of hate and rhetoric, so it is a good management decision. Yet, we all realize that these thing exist and we either choose to distance ourselves from them or join them, but, by whitewashing them, we are merely removing a lively debate from the discussion, and neutering the essence of the discussion which is most often emotion. It is a shame that it had to come to this, but understandable.

Originally posted by Springer
reply to post by Jameela

 

And as long as your intent is to share the truth in a civil, respectable manner (and your posting history supports that assertion) you will never have a problem here. Neither will anyone else of any other religious background or belief.

Sounds good.

I think part of the problem might well be that "in a civil, respectable manner" is a concept with a HUGE amount of variance.

I would dearly love to have a better understanding of HOW TO INSURE I stay on the proper side of all the mods' definitions of such.

MY INTENT [color=CCCCFF]IS to share the truth in a civil and mutually respectable manner.

Most folks who tune in to my person fair-mindedly much at all, realize that.

People with knee-jerk REACTIONS to my content tend not to.

HOWEVER, merely my factual assertions and perspectives TEND to generate harsh personal personhood assaults when I have not said anything negative AT ALL about my correspondent(s). That gets wearying at times.

It's those who seek to "preach" or "pontificate" with no interest in civil discourse or debate because they "know" they are right, that will have issues here.

Not sure how to respond to that one.

At 65 years old, there are a LOT of things I'm greatly convinced I'm right or mostly right about. Am I supposed to pretend I don't think anything's true or right? THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

There's still a lot of details and other stuff that I'm not so convinced of being correct on.

However, if I'm writing about things I am convinced about, I will certainly TEND TO SOUND EXCEEDINGLY CONVINCED!

How is it that Muslims or Marxists or some such WHEN THEY WRITE EXTREMELY CONVINCED of what they are saying--they get a free pass if not applause while I get slapped? That double standard stuff does NOT feel wonderful.

I suppose I could try hard to put tentative qualifiers in virtually every sentence I write on ATS. That seems like a REALLY tumpted up artificial and cumbersome thing to ask.

Personally, I think that criteria is a spin-off of the modern era mentality that preaches and teaches the globalist propaganda that

THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG whatsoever about anything

and whatever is right for you is right for you etc. etc. etc.

Personally, that's barf material to think or say such a thing. That is antithetical to the whole Christian Biblical paradigm.

This item is still a very troublesome one, to me. The only way it would appear that I can remotely hope to stay on the good side of that issue with any confidence at all . . . is to insure that every sentence I write has some qualifier in it.

Personally, that would be PUNATIVE AND HOSTILE to my Christian world view.

Those who seek to sow intolerance, hate, racism or any other form of ignorance will have an issue too.

These SEEM TO BE UNNECESSARILY PROBLEMATIC HEREON.

ANY CHRISTIAN OR CONSERVATIVE who is seen to FEEL STRONGLY about their values and convictions

will be seen by a significant percentage of users and no few mods

to be INTOLERANT, HATEFUL OR RACIST

REGARDLESS of how civil, factual, polite, caringly their writing is worded and toned.

I've tried to see it otherwise. It persistently seems to come back to that far more often that is remotely comfortable.

And, for example, IF you think I'm going to write as though I'm politely and sweetly tolerant of elite globalists buggering and brutally sacrificing toddler boys to satan as an initiation to join the upper ranks of their leadership--you're expecting too much.

And, is there NOTHING which you justifiably hate?

Is it not right to hate folks or at least the actions of those who serially rape women?

Is it not right to hate genocidally dooming millions of children to death by starvation?

I have this image of a tour of the death camps in Germany and the most intense responses allowed are white gloved sweetly toned "Oh, my." 's.

We don't do ignorance here, at least we try our dead level best to abolish it. I want to be clear, opinions we don't agree with are not "ignorant" based on that singular criteria, that doesn't fly either.
Springer...

Sounds good. Sometimes I wonder.

Sigh.

Originally posted by jeanvaljean
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

It's a common professional, slightly technical term but also a fairly common term in the culture in general.
Basically, it means a proponent who is able to some degree of skill to articulate the reasons for belief in
.../... Islam.

Muslim apologists?

I'm not real sure that the Islamic apologists are more than 0.00000000000000000001% convincing, to me.

The tiresome hollow rants; the inaccuraces about Christianity and history; the rationalizations of abundant Muslim behavior; the rampant denials of broadly video'd public facts . . . are beyond hysterically laughable.

Your two definitions don't match.

Evidently in your construction on reality.

I see no incongruence.

In general, the term IMPLIES some skill in defending the position.

How effective those skills are depends on the reader/listener's perspective.

Like most skills . . . apologists have a range of skills and qualities and effectiveness.

At the upper end, one expects above average skill and effectiveness.

However, like Love and Christian . . . it has become a watered-down term.

reply to post by neformore



Evidently my words did not communicate effectively to you

AT ALL.

My sense is that you have absolutely no clue about what I said, much less what I meant and far far less who I am or what I'm about.

I'm not convinced it's worth another try.

I'll think about it.

It seems that in light of the recent events that the media has certainly succeeded in what they sat out to do in covering the current stories.

I worked hard for 35 years. Now after a work related, repetitive movement injury, I find myself unemployed. So, I'm starting a small business, and working out of my home.

I love to come to ATS for quirky news, unconventional takes on mainstream news, and general chit chat. I like that we discuss topics that are usually taboo in traditional offices, like religion and politics.

ATS is my "office water cooler." I really always expected water cooler etiquette to be somewhat looser than P.C. office talk, but, I still expected a certain decorum of respect. Same with ATS. We expect a certain decorum and respect as well, same tolerance that would be expected in any public discourse.

Sometimes the "power of the avatar" that many hide behind, goes to ones head, and the anonymity gets the better.

Thanks for all that you do to keep the streets of ATS safe and clean!

Obviously I too am glad to see ATS go this route. Even if it means that 90% of the members and posts are eventually weeded out, the remaining 10% will without question create an atmosphere more conducive to worthy discussion/topics and overall more appealing to everyone in general.

I am very interested to see how this all plays out!

Originally posted by Crakeur
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

your definitions had nothing to do with what I posted.

what you did was make up a definition, to make your comments seem less barbed when, in reality, calling someone a muslim apologist is nowhere near the same as calling them a scholar, as you imply in your rather silly definition of the word apologist.

oddly enough, your attempt at amending the dictionary was a blaring example of the issues being discussed in the opening post.

thanks for that.

edit on 3-4-2012 by Crakeur because: (no reason given)

INTERESTING.

Who's ammending the dictionary.

I gave my perspective on the meaning of apologist as I understand it and use it.

I stand by it.

The term ranges from

ANYONE who defends their beliefs or whatever it is that they are defending

all the way "up" to

scholarly defense of detailed nuances and issues in a scholarly context.

I noted that it CAN in SOME CONTEXTS be flattering.

Personally, on ATS, calling someone an apologist--is usually more flattering than anything because it at least IMPLIES that someone

IS AT LEAST PRACTICED

if not skilled and experienced from study

at their defense of whatever they are defending.

I think your assumptions about me in your post are off the wall and cheeky.
.

reply to post by BO XIAN


Oh no.

Your words made perfect sense to me

I hope mine made perfect sense to you, and were clear.

They shouldn't need to be explained again to anyone in this, or other, threads.

Originally posted by neformore
What is a "muslim apologist", exactly?

ETA - I am asking this in a staff capacity.

May I attempt to tackle this? Since the only difference between staff and member is staff's ability to affect members' membership, and you are asking "in a staff capacity," that sounds a bit threatening, don't you think? Does this guy get banned if he does not give you the 'proper' answer?

I'll give you an example. In a recent MSM venue there was an article talking about Muslims attacking Jews. If you will remember, there was a high-profile incident of a fellow killing Jewish chilfdren at a synagogue in France. He would ride up on a motorcycle, jump off, run and catch a kid, hold him down and put a bullet through his skull. Apparently this was filmed. This was not the only incident and the article was simply discussing violence against Jews and claiming it has been on an increase in France.

Well, The New York Times came out with a story wondering what harm this would do to Muslims and how the story of Muslims killing Jews might harm Muslims.

The NYT could have come out with an article lamenting ethnic violence. It would have been perfectly acceptable and not one-sided. But instead they came out and suggested that because Jewish children were being killed by Muslims, it might hurt the Muslims. Their concern was not the dead Jewish children, but the potential backlash against Muslims.

That's being a Muslim apologist. Now I know and you very likely know that Jews and Muslims are so genetically similar that you can't tell any genetic differences between the two groups. After thousands of years of inter-mingling, there is no discernible difference. You and I know that all Muslims don't kill Jews. And I think we all know that no matter who kills whom, as Jesse jackson used to say, "We need to stop the cycle of violence." meaning, I think, that it doesn't matter who killed whom last. It's got to stop.

Now, whereever you stand on the issue, from a more conservative standpoint the NYT article is a good example of MSM left-wing bias. And like it or not, the preponderant political stance on ATS is also left-wing. Conservatives do not get a fair hearing here. Christians are regularly attacked, and Muslims are apologized for. Now, so I don't get accused of bias myself, I will say that extreme fundamentalist Christianity is simply not "my cup of tea" and leave it at that, But I certainly sympathize with the way they are treated here. They are under constant attack.

I think it is a very difficult task to moderate ATS. Frankly, I have seen a marked IMPROVEMENT in moderation over the last few years. Moderators are not nearly as, umm, 'persnicity with details' as they used to be. Part of this is due to the changes in the sight towards more simplicity. That is a very good trend.

Springer asked us all to use the idea, 'Before I post, am I making a contribution....' That's a very good idea. I believe you moderators have to use the same idea:

"Before I moderate, am I sure I am not reacting because of my own political biases here." If you can answer that question with certainity, then you certainly have my complete support.