Religion Child Board (Take 2)

[phil13]

Okay, I asked for this once before, but I am now calm and my anger is managed, so here it is:

Nils, could you please create a religion sub-board in 'Anything but Piano' so that the religious discussions won't permeate the rest of our topics quite as much?

Any reaction and/or reasoning for why or why not is welcome.

Phil

[phil13]

Note:

I just realized that this has already been asked for on another thread. Sorry about this one!

Still, I repeat that I strongly recommend a religious board.

Phil

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

A subboard designated only for discussion of religion is worthless for many reasons. One, it lacks the spontaneousness that is generated off of common talk, and deliberate religious discussions will be prim and boring. Two, the subboard will naturally attract those with more will to argue religion, but will ultimately not interest those that get involved with mainstream forum topics, so again, the discussions will lose voice and spontanaety. Three, there will be nothing to talk about. After a few discussions, the board will become stale because of lack of non-religious material.

This is my take on the suggestion. Feel free to ruminate or give opinion.

[debussy symbolism]

And Phil, after watching (with great enthusiasm mind you) your little "Shut up! Shut up!" fiasco, I can freely and safely say that you are in no way calm. 

[phil13]

In case you did not bother to check the dates of my posts, that was yesterday.

Phil

[debussy symbolism]

What difference does that make though?

[wishful thinker]

With the exception of the delivberately provocative "christianity, plague of the MIND" thread, the God botherers seem to manage to throw religion randomly into every post, so I don't think that this idea will work. 

[thalbergmad]

I say the tambourine bangers should have their own board.

They seem to hijack too many threads.

Thali

[ahinton]

I say the tambourine bangers should have their own board.

They seem to hijack too many threads.

Thali

But this is a piano forum first and foremost, so I'm not at all sure that a tambourine section would be appropriate anyway; someone might want a contrabass clarinet section next.

Seriously, whilst I sympathise with those who feel as they do about the evident infiltration of religion-oriented material into many a thread on topics not directly related to religion, I fear that the creation of a sub-board specially for this might risk generating the same or similar reactions from the same people, on the basis that it is unfair and unbalanced to create a sub-board just for religious discussion when there are so many other non-piano-oriented topics that could also be discussed in sub-boards.

What strikes me as the most important here is to remember that this is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of pianism, pianos, piano teaching, piano music, piano maintenance, piano design, the history of pianos and development of piano repertoire and all the rest; perhaps, therefore, the very idea of an "Anything but Piano" sector is where the problem may originate, but if there is to be such a sector then it should really be up to those contributors who feel motivated to drag religious discussion into everthying to (a) try to bear in mind that not everyone here wants this and (b) make more endeavours to keep this kind of thing to a reasonable minimum. Many would argue that this has not happened so far, hence the concerns expressed here. No one wants to see unnecessary censorship here, of course, but the necessary censorship ought best to take the form of self-censorship where excessive religious discussion is concerned.

Let's not forget Mauricio Kagel's statement that, whilst not all musicians believe in God, they all believe in J S Bach...

Best,

Alistair

[phil13]

Well put, Alistair. Now, explain it to Pianistimo.

Phil

[ahinton]

Well put, Alistair. Now, explain it to Pianistimo.

Phil

Thank you. I rather hope that I have already done as you ask, given that "pianistimo" is so avid a reader of and contributor to the various threads on this forum...

Best,

Alistair

[pianowelsh]

If you look at it statistically its the people who complain most who start these threads and maintain them - there are also several hundred non religious topics in the anything but piano thread that are not 'infected' by religious comments. Get a grip people. If you actually talked about music and the piano as much as you moaned about religious posting then there would actually be some decent content being unearthed on this site.

[ahinton]

If you look at it statistically its the people who complain most who start these threads and maintain them - there are also several hundred non religious topics in the anything but piano thread that are not 'infected' by religious comments. Get a grip people. If you actually talked about music and the piano as much as you moaned about religious posting then there would actually be some decent content being unearthed on this site.

I'm not sure that your first statement is entirely true, actually. Your second one is far more plausible. The remainder makes good sense.

As you must be aware, however, there has been a disproportionately high number of contributions to both religious and non-religious topics that go on at length about biblical matters; even religion is not all about the Bible - where are all the equivalent posts about the Talmud, the Q'ran, etc. You must also have noticed, for instance, the disproportionately large number of words about God's alleged creation of the earth 6,000 years or so ago. If someone wants to write about that (whatever anyone else may think of it), that's fine; it's the sheer quantity and persistence that bothers me (and others) - which is arguably one reason why that "decent content" to which you refer above actually has to be "unearthed"!

So - God created the earth, but devout Pianostreet members must do the "unearthing"! ("just kidding!" - as Susan would say...)

Best,

Alistair

[ihatepop]

How bout we try to eliminate religion posts and threads althogether? 

Some moderators can patrol the 'anything but piano board' and delete all the religion posts!

ihatepop

[pianowelsh]

That would be to severely curtail freedom of expression and would infact give an unfair bias towards athiests and agnostics.  Im sorry mr hinton but i really dont think my first statement is that far off look at the ones started even reccently. Noone is restricting people from posting from the talmud or the q'ran or any other religious text. They are just negligent at doing so. The athiests are VERY proactive on this site at undermining ALL organised religion and challenging religious thought.  i dont have a problem with that! I have a problem with them raising a question and then moaning that they get an answer..its like the little kid who keeps asking why.  I understand that people have questions and I understand that people sometimes ask questions and dont want answers but really if people ask a question on a topic which is fundamentally a religious issue then to not expect a defense is naive at best. The vast majority of religious posts are nothing to do with creation reallt alisdair so I dont know where that came from. To my knowledge I have never posted any 'religious' topics/comments in anything other than the anything but piano board without specifically being in relation to a question asked of me. The sheer quantity of anti-religious material flooding the anything but piano board is a concern to me thats why I continue to post there.  I think you exaggerate excessively to say that religious descussion means that music related issues have to be unearthed. My concern is that people are so lazy at posting and creating topics in the piano board and yet have no qualms about starting more topics lamenting the dearth of good discussion in the anything but piano board...its a farce! I seriously question taking anything that these people (we know who they are) seriously because they saying one thing and doing the other.

[phil13]

DELETE

I've had enough of this. I really don't care anymore.

I have not seen nearly as many problems with religion popping up in random places. It's stable now. It's not a problem anymore.

I started this crap and own up to it. This is my thread, and if Nils won't delete it, I will figure out how to lock it.

Phil

[maul]

Religion infects everything. Tis impossible to contain it within a mere child board.

[thalbergmad]

Indeed, the bacillus will spread faster than the plague.

[pianowelsh]

I take exception to the fact that you equate religion with childishness. How dare you! I dont often get angry but just because someone has a clearly thought out world view in the context of a religion (whichever one) doesnt make them sub human or someone to 'put up' with. I think the mere suggestion of this is decidedly discriminatory and insulting. yet again another specifically 'God thread' has been started by someone who doesnt claim to be religious. now I dont have a problem with that but i have a problem with the people who will blame religious people for joining in the discussion. If you dont hold to a religion FINE but stop getting on the case of those that do .people without organised religion doent rule you know we all have the right to speak and express our views. People who constantly butt into religious threads and say these religious bigots etc etc spouting off again are ever bit as annoying as religious people are to those who dont follow a particular religion SO be more tolerant -PLEASE

[danny elfboy]

Why not remove the off-topid board?
I'm serious. Forums are becoming stupid and annoying lately
Either they create a child board for any sort of thing within the forum topic so that there's a lack of spontaneity and a irrational fear for OT or they over-expand the off-topic section which often contains more post than the specific topic of the post

Who needs a general discussions board in a piano forum?
If you want to chit-chat you can use the chat or another less music-oriented forum

The Off-Topic section has grown a lot lately and as a consequence the piano boards are not as frequented and used as they were some years ago

Let's get rid of this Off-Topic nonsense and all the nonsense it's written there.
I simply ignore it and just read the piano-related forum but consider the inclusion of an useless off-topic section (there are so many better forums for that) a negative aspect

[phil13]

You know, I'm beginning to agree with you. There once was a reason for having that board, and the topics were more interesting, but it's really gone downhill in the 2 years that I've been here. And, after all, this IS a piano forum. We don't really need all the other stuff.

Phil

[danny elfboy]

You know, I'm beginning to agree with you. There once was a reason for having that board, and the topics were more interesting, but it's really gone downhill in the 2 years that I've been here. And, after all, this IS a piano forum. We don't really need all the other stuff.

Phil

I'll tell you more: there are members I know who have unregistered or chose not to post here anymore because of the "anything but piano" section. Because of the way it was turning this forum into another of the hundreds of chit-chat forum out there, because of the way it stole attention from the piano-related forums and the people who had genuine piano concerns, suggestions or needed help (and this really disappointed those who had been writing thousands of posts to help others and saw the nonsense off-topic  grew so much while the piano boards got so little attention)  ...

... BUT also because of the conflicts created with the other members
I do think that it's important in a piano forum not to know the philosophies, tastes, political preferences of the other members because the piano-related discussions need neutrality. We've something in common and it's the piano and we must know the other members only for that so we have a common ground. If we start to throw political, religious, philosophical discussion we destroy this common ground and it's harder to be neutral when sharing and asking about the piano

For example I don't want to know if my piano teacher is of the right wing, because I know I could never agree with such political view and willing or not it will become hard to see her in the same way. That's why I don't want to know anything which isn't piano related about my teachers, I don't want the natural contrasts that will arise to destroy the neutrality which is needed to work together. The piano is what we have in common; period ...

... and that's also why I refrain from ever joining a discussion in the "anything but piano"
Because I have better sources where and more carefully chosen people with whom to discuss such things and also because I want to save this forum from the sad stupid fate is dooming so many other forums born years ago; when the web was less utopical and more spontaneous (when there were unmoderated forums with hundreds of members that worked and maintain their order autonomously)

[pianowolfi]

I am pretty much interested in how fellow pianists think about life, love, the world, religion, politics, everything. You can't replace that with just chatting in a random forum with other, non pianist people. If you live music and make music to live your view of everything is different from other persons who don't make music and don't share this part of life. So I would badly miss the anything board.

[thalbergmad]

Me too wolfi.

We are not all single subject piano fanatics with Beethoven Sonata scores sticking up our backsides.

Thal

[danny elfboy]

I am pretty much interested in how fellow pianists think about life, love, the world, religion, politics, everything. You can't replace that with just chatting in a random forum with other, non pianist people. If you live music and make music to live your view of everything is different from other persons who don't make music and don't share this part of life. So I would badly miss the anything board.

I'm not sure .... it's clear enough that playing the piano and loving music doesn't uniformely change or shape our view about life, love, religion and so on
We're so different in our views that I can't see the difference between discussing these topics with a pianist or discussing them with a person that doesn't know music or play an instrument. It has always been like this. Think for example of the difference between Wagner, Brahms and Tchaikovsky ... all composers, all musically aware, yet the "common points" end here. Except for their knowledge and love of music they were so different about anything else from the other that a complete stranger from the street would have had more things in commin with them than what they had in common with each other ...

I understand that from a certain point of view experiencing music should shape our views in a similar manner (likewise I don't expect to find many republican in a zealous pro-environment and animal-rights forum)
But music and playing are so abstract as concepts in nature that there are so many different interpretations which are consistent with our different view of life
For example one could think of music a strong manifenstation of control and order hence being consistence the freak-control mentality, one could think of music as the absolete chance combination of sound hence being consistent with a cynical hyper-pragmatic mentality, one could think of music as the attempt by human to emulate the natural sound hence (harmonical sounds = beautiful natural sound, unhamornical sounds = danger sounds (volcano, heartquacke, screams) hence being consistent with an hyper-environmental mentality, one could think of music as the language of god and musicians as his translator hence being consistent with a strong religious mentality, one could think of music as one of the only still intact root with the past hence being consistent with a conservative mentality, one could think of music as the only mean that allows so much evolution hence being consistent with progressive mentality, one could think of music as a manifenstation of the absolute freedom of the individual hence being consistent with liber and pseudo-anarchical theories, one could think of music as an hidden maninfestation of energy hence being consistent with hermetic and meta-physical theories .... and so on and on and on

See what I mean ?

[pianowolfi]

Yes sure. Though I would miss the anything board. The subjects that don't interest you can be easily ignored. And nobody can be forced to post in endless and pointless debates. But sometimes the forum is to me like a big village ( I won't say family yet ). One wants to know what the neighbour or friend thinks

[danny elfboy]

Yes sure. Though I would miss the anything board. The subjects that don't interest you can be easily ignored. And nobody can be forced to post in endless and pointless debates. But sometimes the forum is to me like a big village ( I won't say family yet ). One wants to know what the neighbour or friend thinks

Why?!
Just to find out that they disagree with you and that you can't do anything about it because everyone has different mindset and no one is either wrong or right?
People have already made their mind up. When you discuss anything that deals with subjective matters the discussion will always be irrational because there's no rational way to objectify those concepts. Morality is immoral by its very nature. And it's impossible to rationalize the moralization of existential concepts. Try to have a person pro-death-penalty and a person against death penalty have a rational discussion about the subject. Who the hell cares if my neighbours are pro-death-penalty? I know it's not  a matter of understanding whether I'm wrong or whether they're right. It's too relative.
In fact I don't even care what my family think. They are individuals and have their own mind. There's no use in knowing we don't agree about something is devoid of universal and empirical/objective agreement and explanation.

I would like to know what's the point of a discussion of "is there a god?" between an atheist and a believer is ... when both are talking about something they can't quantify, prove, rationalize and observe ...

It's as naive as trying to have someone backing up the need for universal truths, when not even "ampliative logic" (which represents the 80% of what we consider "human knowledge) can ever be considered "truth"

[pianowolfi]

I think it would be better to move this discussion into the other thread "what's this about the anything but piano thread" .

[soliloquy]

Let's not forget Mauricio Kagel's statement that, whilst not all musicians believe in God, they all believe in J S Bach...

Best,

Alistair

I think that from now on, all of us should bring up Kagel in any conversation to annoy all of these biblethumpers ruining our thread by throwing it miserably off topic and turning it into an endless, boring, repetitive religious rant.  Watch


I personally believe that creating a sub forum for only religious threads would remove some of the randomness and chance from the board; as Mauricio Kagel would certainly tell us, judging by his music, he would frown upon a loss of such needed spontaneity.  I love how sometimes Kagel would notate the facial expression of the performer.  Does anyone have sheet music to his Sonant?  I have MM51 and am willing to trade.