Perhaps a new rule is needed. Every discussion on this board regarding the topic of religion has turned nasty. Just like discussions of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, maybe talk about religion should be prohibited. Just a thought, seems like this could stop a lot of the bickering.

-Zavier

So that would also mean all screenplays involving religion be deleted and not sent in either or else religious discussion would happen. Frankly I agree as screenwriting and religion aren't really hand in hand.

Unless you're the pope himself or Mel Gibson leave the church and religious chatter to those guys.

The bigger a club gets -- where its members can't discuss religion and politics -- the easier its members can become leaders in religious and political organization, because their subordinate members wouldn't question their morals openly, and that'd open up the door for all sorts of corruption in the world.  Whoever leads a place where religion and politics can't be discussed is closed-minded or manipulative -- one or both.  It'd be easy for the leaders of such a place to use the members as tools for creating a nation where they say "In God We Trust", but really ... no, it's too disturbing to even think about.

Well this board has already been corrupted so what would it matter?

With all this religious banter I really see no point in it unless you're starting your own church or cult and if that's the case this isn't the place either way.

I don't see how religion compares or has anything to do with screenwriting, tell me as I am eager to understand your point.

All it seems to do is turn everybody against each other and forces Don to mod more often than he probably would like to.

Oh, I've got a great idea. If you don't want to talk about religion and politics, don't participate in the discussions about religion and politics. Don't read the threads. Seriously, a new rule? you act as if everyone who comes on here is required to read every thread. Personally, when a thread starts going down paths I'm not interested in reading, I stop reading it. That's right. I don't read every single thread on the board. I have that choice to not view discussions I don't want to view.

People will always bicker. People will always argue. People will always throw in their two cents about nearly everything (just like I'm doing now). People are just that way. If you try to sanitize discussions, you stifle opinions and creativity. Someone is getting something out of going to town on these topics you don't want to read. If you aren't, hey that's your decision. But why take the discussion away from those who want to discuss it just because you don't like it?

Kinda selfish, if you ask me.

Obviously this is coming from the response to the "Jesus" thread.  Religion screenplays are fine, but voicing YOUR BELIEFS in regard to the religious portion shouldn't be.  Review the script based on content, not if it goes against your beliefs.  Obviously if we all talked about what we believe in, then it would be a political forum rather than a script forum.  I really don't see why that script has come back with a vengeance.  It's 7 pages long and the writer is long gone so he's never even going to see any of this.

The script was bumped up by a guy causing trouble with multiple screennames anyway, I'd just assume ban him, but let the script stay because over half of the posts are just criticism toward each other and all of it stemmed from the review glorifying religion.

If you want to argue religion, go elsewhere.  Stick to the script.

Hey George you can avoid them but the aftermath is what we can't avoid... have you noticed someone is missing lately from the boards? I have and he contacted me about it.

People get banned and well if we don't care we'll just keep losing them all.

I don't blame Don for it but it keeps happening and I won't just avoid situations if it can help some people from making stupid mistakes and getting themselves banned.

The simple fact of the matter is that it won't go away if you just "avoid" it and stick to your script threads as it will eventually turn the entire message board into a place nobody wants to be.

Quoted from George Willson Seriously, a new rule? you act as if everyone who comes on here is required to read every thread.

I'm not sure how you got this from the three sentences of my first post. I'm just trying to propose ideas to curb the social decline of this board, not kill creativity for all. Avoiding a problem never accomplishes anything, avoidance just allows the problem to grow and fester.  

-Zavier

Just came back from hacking the non-script related discussion from a script thread.  Please - In the script discussion, limit your discussion to the script at hand. Please stay on topic.  Politics and religion are fair game in the appropriate forum.  

And, please take a look at the rules http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=News,m=1080786748

Don

I will say that im a lil sad, from the sound of the thread i thought this was about bill maher...man i love that guy.


anyways i didn't see any fighting about religion in the jesus thread, hell i was trying to keep in from that by creating a common thing we could all agree and move on from (which is apprently bad by the boards standerds   ) but that one new poster kept insiting on shoving stuff down our throats and saying he was olny defending his religion...which may i remind you NO one was attacking. the olny neg. statments made had to do with the script it's self.

Now i don't think religion talk or anything should be banned...i really don't want to have to change my name and tag underneth it, but it needs to be done in orderly fashion and not in attacks (the attacks stem from pro whatever religion they are guys)

if this can be done i think productive disscusions can stem from it.

BTW what was wrong with my observation of Jesus as a man? im not a religous person nor am i christain or chatolic or any other religion that holds jesus and god in high regards, it was just an opion of a man.

i respect the fact that it needed to be deleted for some reason, i was just wondering if someone could fill me in on that reason. if not that is fine too.


EDIT: i just read the above post by DON and realize my post was "off topic" so please disregard my last part of wondering why.

I think that there should be no 'rule'. I would just advice that you wouldn't talk about religion. Lots of fights/wars today are all because of religion. I never talk about religion, I know where it could lead.

If you want to talk about religion, talk about it in the section for anything not related to script writing.  This way, we don't have to see it if we don't want to.


Phil

I'm starting to worry about how my post-apocalyptic sci-fi gore-fest 'Pope Wars' will be received. Maybe I'll hold off posting that for the time being.

Script threads should remain for discussion of the script at hand. It's very easy for these discussions to wander aimlessly. I'm guilty of getting sucked into these off-topic discussions myself. Credit to Don for keeping things under control.

Incidentally, is Dragonrider still around? I was shocked to hear he sent a nasty email to Breanne.

I think Dragonrider is posting under Digitalcommando now.

Though I could be wrong.


Phil

Quoted from Martin I'm starting to worry about how my post-apocalyptic sci-fi gore-fest 'Pope Wars' will be received. Maybe I'll hold off posting that for the time being. Script threads should remain for discussion of the script at hand. It's very easy for these discussions to wander aimlessly. I'm guilty of getting sucked into these off-topic discussions myself. Credit to Don for keeping things under control. Incidentally, is Dragonrider still around? I was shocked to hear he sent a nasty email to Breanne.

Im starting to worry about mine as well...er and the advertisment i came up for it with photoshop, oh well nothing notable has ever been done with out offending a few in the process.

If it's a comedy you shouldn't have any problems unless it's bad, see the jesus one was a genuine attempt at retelling parts of jesus's life and I think it was done poorly in peoples eyes.

If your script is a parody/satire you'll be perfectly fine as it is meant to be funny and not a serious historical piece.

That's what I think anyway but you never know.

I think imposing a rule against having religious or political debates wouldn't be in this boards be interest. An argument is one thing. But I think a debate once in a while can be a good thing, you know. Let's just make sure we keep them in check, and those who do decide to participate in them should do it maturely. A lot of us on this board are fully capable of writing mature and thought-provoking scripts, so whose not to say we can't have mature and thought-provoking discussions?

I will say it right now as most of the members aren't mature, I'm sorry to point out the truth but it is what it is.

With all the fighting over ideas for scripts and down the list of mindless things that happen I just do not see many mature thought provoking discussions in our future.

Quoted from Old Time Wesley Hey George you can avoid them but the aftermath is what we can't avoid... have you noticed someone is missing lately from the boards? I have and he contacted me about it. People get banned and well if we don't care we'll just keep losing them all. I don't blame Don for it but it keeps happening and I won't just avoid situations if it can help some people from making stupid mistakes and getting themselves banned. The simple fact of the matter is that it won't go away if you just "avoid" it and stick to your script threads as it will eventually turn the entire message board into a place nobody wants to be.

My basic point was that people grumble about threads that go into topics they don't want to discuss. Now while these topics might get out of hand occasionally, maing a new rule (the topic of this post) will not stop these selfsame people from posting in this manner. We can warn. We can let them know how far out of line they are, but the bottom line is (and you know this as well as I do, Wesley) the outcome will likely be exactly what it would have been otherwise.

Rules are made for the betterment of those who follow them. Those who didn't follow the rules to start with aren't going to follow another one that is along the same lines as the rules which already exist. Some may recall the Columbine incident from 1999. Those kids broke 16 laws in what they did. You know what the lawmaker's solution to that problem was? Make 2 more laws. If those 2 laws were in place beforehand, what do you think would have happened? I believe they would have broken 18 laws instead of 16.

Don does a good job of patrolling the boards and helping to keep them in line. It is unfortunate that the maturity level of some (never all or most) of the participants is below the level to maintain a reasonable conversation, but that's life. For those of us who prefer to keep the boards' discussion at a mature level reading undesirable threads has really only one purpose: try to bring it back on topic and keep them from getting into more trouble than they've already caused. Will it always work? No. Might it come down to simply(tm) letting it go? Probably.

So maybe my original posting on the subject was more apathetic, but that's kind of how I felt at the time. Wesley, I know that's how you feel sometimes too, based on your variety of posts. The point, however, was get over it and move on. The troublemakers will always be discovered and put out. No need to dwell on it.

No need to become a crusader, I did not start the thread but I do think that the noose Don holds should be tightended a little bit to keep this a writing community and not another garbage website.

Frankly with the variety of stuff going on it has kind of become the place you don't want to be as often, I noticed a lot of the regulars have cut back on coming here. (I mean the real members)

For some reason, I missed this thread when it was originally started. I don’t want to drudge up bad feelings but I would like to set the record straight since the person who sent me the email is just a kid (only twelve I believe).

When I received the email that basically called me a Christian hater and rambled belligerently about how I’m going to hell for all eternity, I thought it was from an adult man so it was scary. Looking at it as something written by a child, it’s still a little scary but mostly because of the closed mindedness of it.

I once had an article published in a newspaper I had written about religion and received death threats from Christians so when I got the email from the young man, I was quite spooked by it.

Of course, as I said, looking at it as from a child reduces it to mere foolishness.

That said, I would like to say that I was raised with a very conservative Christian upbringing in the “Bible Belt” where there are still “sin taxes” and alcohol sales are prohibited on Sunday. Church was a must attend event. The reason I say that is because I understand why this particular young man behaves the way he does with regard to religion.

He was raised that way. He was taught these things from a very young age and we cannot underestimate the power of indoctrinating children into a certain belief system from birth. I am what’s called a “deprogrammed Christian” and have spent years trying to reverse the damage done to my mind by the insidiousness of brainwashing children without teaching them the tools of objective thought.

In any event, I would like to drop the whole letter thing and let the young man have a chance to grow and change without a foolish thing being held over his head indefinitely.

Aside from all that, however, I want to point out that it’s precisely BECAUSE religion stirs up so much divisiveness that it MUST be discussed. As long as lines of communication remain open, the truth can be fleshed out. Yes, it’s taxing to debate with a brick wall but it really does ultimately serve society for the better. People should never be afraid to seek the truth wherever it’s found.

That’s my two cents.

I wouldn't worry about it.  The lengthy constructive criticism thread was in direct response of the actions from that same young man.  Isn't that ironic?

Wow. Sounds like that little guy really knows how to generate some discussion! We should keep him around.  

Wow.  I missed a good discussion.