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In Reply to: A safe place posted by susie on October 18, 2004 at 21:27:41:
Thanks for pointing that out, Susie. I had always assumed that Journeys is where I could discuss my personal journey of recovering from life in TF and that GenX was for more general issues. I just reread the rules and guidelines for the Journeys board, and it is clearly for people who still have faith, are struggling with their faith, or are otherwise on some "spiritual" journey.
I currently classify myself as an agnostic. I will accept a thing (god, afterlife, miracle, etc.) as fact only if there is verifiable evidence. I will no longer accept anything on faith alone. On this "naturalistic" journey (for lack of a better description) I'm constantly learning and growing. I've shared some of what I'm learning on Journeys with the hope that it may enlighten others who struggle with similar issues.
As far as I can remember, most of the irrational, personal attacks against me for being an outspoken unbeliever have come on the GenX and Soapbox boards. So far, I've felt fairly safe on Journeys, but perhaps that's partly because I was under a false impression of the purpose of that board.
Perhaps one way to resolve this is for the coordinators to revise the purpose of Journeys to be only for the personal journeys of all exmembers, regardless of their religious or non-religious views, who actually are still on a journey. Christians, bible-believing or otherwise, generally have such certainty that their religious views are right, that you could hardly describe them as being on a journey. They have arrived. They have the answers. Besides, they have Kathy's Corner. Atheists, agnostics, humanists, sceptics and other's who hold a scientific or naturalistic worldview, on the other hand are on a continual journey of discovery, which often necessitates modifying or reversing previously held views as we learn more and more about our universe.
As this website demonstrates, there is a wide gulf between believers and unbelievers, those who turn to religion for answers and those who turn to reason instead. I have personally been able to somewhat bridge that gap with certain Christians on this site, but only where we have had mutual respect for each other and kept the conversation about ideas and principles rather than personalities. If Journeys becomes a place solely for posters to discuss their personal journey, then each post or reply would have to be extraordinarly respectful of the expressed views. Personal attacks of any kind would not be tolerated as they are on the other boards, because there is a very big difference between a post expressing an opinion on some general issue on Soapbox or GenX and a post expressing things of a very personal nature related to how that person views the universe and their place in it.
This is just a suggestion for one way of resolving this issue. As I said months ago in a post, when I began searching for an appropriate exmember site this one seemed to be the only suitable one for me, an agostic ex-FGer, where I thought I could safely express myself as an unbeliever. So you make a good point, Susie, about making a safe space that might appeal to non-Christian or non-religious exmember newcomers.
