Religious Issues

A religious issue, when it applies to online mailing lists and discussions, does not necessarily mean anything related to religion per se. I had recently commented on a mailing list and suggested that the mailing list be kept free of issues related to politics and religion. Anything else should be fair game. However, I think that a lot of people misunderstood what I meant when I mentioned religious issues. So, it flared up resulting in someone leaving the list, which he didn’t have to actually.

So, I’m thinking of taking some time out to explain to the readers of my blog, and maybe educate everyone a little on some online etiquette. You may not know this but a religious issue when it relates to online discussions and such, is defined as:

religious issues n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off holy wars, such as “What is the best operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)?”, “What about that Heinlein guy, eh?”, “What should we add to the new Jargon File?” See holy wars; see also theology, bigot.

This term is a prime example of ha ha only serious. People actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible. The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the crossfire is mumble Get a life! and leave — unless, of course, one’s _own_ unassailably rational and obviously correct choices are being slammed.

As you can see from the definition, a religious issue is essentially anything where irrational personal beliefs and unjustifiable personal opinions rule. Of course, this includes religions themselves but also include things like “climate change” and even “George Bush”. The whole idea of keeping religious issues out of online lists is to ensure that discussions stay exactly that, discussions.

However, I think that I probably committed another social faux pas by assuming that people understood what I meant when I said that politics and religion should be kept off the list. Well, as I said in an earlier post, my faults are social, not moral. I have since, sent a personal apology to the person who felt slighted by my comments as I think that the person might have taken it personally.

It’s really not easy to fit into society, especially one where I have always been considered a misfit.