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Comments on Questions about theology, doctrine, philosophy

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Questions about theology, doctrine, philosophy

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We're off to a great start and even have our first question! The question provokes some interesting questions about scope that I figured it'd be best to raise here for the community to discuss.

Typically, questions that are theological/doctrinal/philosophical in nature should specify a specific tradition from which they wish to hear, to prevent from being too broad and to enable answers to be evaluated based on conformity to a specific Christian tradition. Alternatively, we could allow answers from any Christian perspective (and ask that those posting answers state their perspective). What do you think?

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posted over 3 years ago
3y ago
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qohelet‭
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I don't feel that there's a reason we necessarily have to take the view that questions have to be about a specific tradition; there's no reason a question has to have a single 'best answer' - answers are answers, voting dictates how good/bad that answer is, there's no reason we can't have 5 answers all being equally good, is there?

If we were to allow such a thing, answers should indicate which 'tradition' this comes from, except when it shouldn't. That is, maybe someone has a really good answer explaining the differences between all the traditions, which can be good and interesting to know. I don't see the point in forbidding such questions from the get-go, unless there's something I'm missing?[1]

Don't get me wrong, if there's a reason that all questions should indicate a specific tradition, then listening to that reason is important, of course. But we can decide what is 'too broad' and just because someone can evaluate one answer doesn't mean they have to evaluate them all, I'd have thought?

Also, if someone wants to specify a single tradition, or authority model, then they should absolutely be free to do so.

  1. There very well could be something I'm missing here. Also, just because I have a little marker by my username doesn't mean you have to listen to me either, this answer is purely my own opinion. ↩︎

posted over 3 years ago
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Mithrandir24601‭ staff
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General comments (8 comments)
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qohelet‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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This is great input, thanks! I definitely don't want to fall into the trap of "We have to do it the way [that other community] did it." My concern is that mainstream (evangelical Protestant) views will be upvoted and minority perspectives downvoted simply based on agreement/disagreement and popularity (which I've seen in other communities, but again, that doesn't necessarily mean it will happen here). A good way of gauging the waters is to answer from a minority perspective and see what happens!

qohelet‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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I also happen to be a part of one of those minority perspectives as a member of an Eastern/Byzantine Christian tradition, so this would not be "contrived" for me to answer in such a way.

qohelet‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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The other interesting thing we have in Christianity is groups that claim to have no tradition/bias ("We just believe the Bible!"), and there is a bit of discussion about this on another community (see, e.g., https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1438/1304).

qohelet‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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BTW is your Discord username the same? Or are you on there?

Sigma‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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Another difference from Some Other site is that we don't have "accepted answers" so there is more circumstantial support for multiple good answers. On the other hand, "controversial" answers with both up & down votes get dinged, so issues with majority-view downvotes may be amplified.

Peter Cooper Jr.‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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I don't know how possible it would be in practice, but I'd really like to instill a culture of upvoting meaning something like "this is a useful contribution to the discussion helping one understand a perspective" and not "this is the correct opinion on the matter". It's going to take some effort and a lot of reinforcing messaging for something like that to have a chance of working, I know though.

qohelet‭ wrote over 3 years ago · edited over 3 years ago
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Peter, I’m not opposed to that, but that’s what forums are for, not Q&A sites. So I’m leery. Usually Q&A is not discussion. It’s finite answers.

Peter Cooper Jr.‭ wrote over 3 years ago
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It's definitely tricky to find the right balance, where Codidact's focus (if I understand correctly) is foremost on building a community, of which good Q&A is but one (though key) piece. My initial thought is along the lines of I'd want to ask a question here much like I'd want to ask a question at my small group Bible study, but here there would be more diversity of opinion (which is why I'd want to ask here rather than just my local group, so I could learn about how others see things).