Do you think religious and philosophical discussions don't have a place in Giantbomb?

Stick to video games

It wouldn't work sense people will end up going ape shit......

Which often have a philosophical bent to them. I'd cite Xenogears if I'd actually played it.

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may i suggest

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/

for that shit

And the offtopic forums are for...

Never really leads to much of anything other than conflict in my experience, so no, I want my GB as untainted by outside world bullshit as possible. (Except, of course, for on the Bombcast, where they can talk about literally anything and make it entertaining.)

Since you are most likely referring to my thread that got locked... I thought about this as well.

Being the "General Discussion" board one might think you can have general discussions about whatever you want, but that does not seem to be the case.

Which is fine, whatever.

I was a little surprised at the lock, but I'm not going to push the issue.

Energy Drinks

Yes because we are very kind and respectful people around here. I never saw a bad thing happen on Giant Bomb forums before so it won't happen in future either. That's common knowledge, isn't it Zack.

eheh

we are talking about discussions, not endless disdainful comments about any religion and deifying neil degrasse tyson / carl sagan

I have zero interest in debating religion on this particular corner of the internet because it immediately turns toxic.

@arbitrarywater said:

There are very few corners where it doesn't in my experience. At least once it's gotten past a certain audience threshold. I think every discussion can work but it takes the right people to do it but it's that much harder when everyone else is just shouting and then shouting at the shouting.

It's alright if its civil and in the off topic forums. Can't say that I have any future plans to join in any religious and philosophical discussions though.

@arbitrarywater said:

There are very few corners where it doesn't in my experience. At least once it's gotten past a certain audience threshold. I think every discussion can work but it takes the right people to do it but it's that much harder when everyone else is just shouting and then shouting at the shouting.

General Discussion means the general discussion of all things video games. Off-Topic is for, you know, off topic discussion.

Sincerely, I respect the decision, but I was starting an interesting discussion there. And that sucks if it starts happening in philosophical topics.

Explain to me in great detail what next-gen console Jesus would Realistically buy. Then you've caught my attention from this Ittle Dew QL.

Fair enough, again... I'm not pushing the issue.

To the extent that a discussion on video games will include aesthetics, morality, or even the logic of the game, you're discussing philosophy, like it or not.

Clearly the Wii U

I have to imagine he'd just buy a six-pack of Old Milwaukee because he just can't deal with those 12 apostles anymore.

Those types of discussion always devolve into pointless arguing, flame wars and trolling. Always. Without fail. We generally try to leave them open for a while, but it's never long before they devolve into nonsense. Sometimes it can be better to nip them in the bud before they reach truly awful levels.

Also, the thread that was locked earlier also breached our spam rules. Posting an image with a four word caption does not promote discussion. Had the OP gone to the effort to write a few paragraphs to promote productive discussion on the subject, it may have been allowed to run for a little longer, until the inevitable descent into madness.

No, they're pointless and never go anywhere.

You're not going to change anyones mind. Its a punch of pointless circle jerks and intellectual masturbation.

I don't come to Giant Bomb for serious religious and philosophical conversations, don't want to see them here.

Personally I can change my mind...

No. Some discussion on an internet forum isn't going to change someone's opinion. It always devolves into pretty nasty condescending remarks.

Similar to Gametrailers, we have a Religion and Philosophy board that's surprisingly active given the topic. My personal take on it? Well, I wouldn't exactly go to a gaming community in hopes of debating or/and attempting to convince others of my own beliefs or lack thereof.

^

Personally I think all threads should be locked as soon as they are created, just in case.

The moderating has been a joke lately.

No. It takes one troll to destroy a thread and religion is like catnip for trolls. In person, though, I think the conversation can be had. But not online.

Why would the Giant Bimb forums be your venue of choice to discuss anything?

Philosophical yes, religious maybe. I say that as a Christian. It can get.... weird.

Also I don't like the word religion.

see it got weird already.

Do I think that they don't have a place here? Yes. They don't have a place here. But that's not an option.

Philosophy, sure, religion, not so much.

Your poll is confusing me. You ask if they don't have a place here, and then one of the poll options is "Yes, in a civil manner". I'm going to assume you don't mean that religious and philosophical discussions are to be had here, but only so long as they're not civil in any way. You probably didn't mean to include that "don't"?

To answer the question though, I think there is a place for discussion, but not for debate. There's no sense in debating whether a religion is true or false, but I think it can be interesting to get different religious and philosophical perspectives on an issue or topic. It's much less an interest in "IS GOD REAL? DEBATE", and rather discussions about themes or philosophies presented in games and other media. If it becomes an issue in a thread, then either lock the thread or deal with the user(s) at fault.

We're a community of people, no reason we shouldn't be able to discuss that sort of stuff, so long as it doesn't turn into a shitstorm first. People can harp on how this is a video game website, but for a lot of us it's a community first, and quite frankly one of the better ones on the internet. And even for debates, if kept civil, I think they have their place.

To be fair, it was nine words.

The "Yes" answer means that you believe adamantly philosophical question should be discussed here. "In a civil manner." means that they should be discussed only if in a civilized way.

I didn't want to preach or enforce any behaviours in the poll, so the options are as general as I could make them.

Ah! That's a relief. By the wording in the post of the mod I got the idea that the problem was the type of the discussion.

I wish I could quote the OP who said...

"but just to understand if philosophical debates are not fit to be discussed by gamers."

We are only gamers here because it is a gaming website. If this was a philosophical website where philosophical discussion occurred, with the same user base, would we still be identifying as gamers?

I've said no, because I don't think a civil manner can be achieved anywhere on the internet when it comes to politics or religion. This isn't because we are gamers. I'm sure plenty of gamers and non gamers, giant bomb users or not, are capable of civil discussion in person but I don't think this is the right place for it.

That's not accurate.

The locking mod specifically said that the reason it was locked was the topic, not that it was spam. As seen here:

"#81 Edited by Sparky_Buzzsaw (5095 posts) - 1 hour, 21 minutes ago

Giant Bomb is definitely not the place for religious or philosophical debates on anything deeper than if a hamburger is a sandwich. I'm also going to remind everyone that here on Giant Bomb, the golden rule is "Don't be a jerk," as seen in our lovely Forum Rules.

Locking this down."

The fact that it was considered spam might be valid as well, but it was not the mentioned reason for the lock.

EDIT:

For the record, by definition of the reason for the lock, one could deduce that a thread discussing the merits of conversing about non-gaming topics, such as religion, would be out of place as well, also... Country Music...

Not to take anything away from that thread either... just saying, could be double standards.

If you're spiritual (like me) and want excellent gaming commentary, places like GameChurch.com exist for you (full disclosure: I've written a few pieces for them). If you want actually deep, useful discussions about theology, you'll probably have better luck in a philosophy course or something rather than just about anywhere on the Internet (though you can certainly try). If you want dumb (in the best way) video game stuff, you can come to Giant Bomb. I think that, while the audience here can often be extremely intelligent, this isn't necessarily the place for them to dive deep into heavy topics. In a way, it's a bit like a dark, noisy club. Sure, you might find some brilliant philosophers in there relaxing, but it's not the ideal environment to ask them their opinions on Kant.

I have no problem at all with the concept of religious discussion happening on Giant Bomb, and have commented in several such threads... but it's also not what I come to the site for, by any means, so I'm also OK if the mods are wary of it. There are too many people in a place like this that just want to trample on the discussion with offensive or defamatory language (and I'm not just talking about atheists), so I can see why there's hesitation to allow it and a haste to close it.

I said gamers because it is the lowest common denominator among the users of the Giantbomb forums. Although the same user base would be impossible because of the difference of tastes.

No. There is no way to be civil about such topics on a video game forum.

I don't see why not, just because our commonality is a fondness for games doesn't mean we don't enjoy discussing topics outside of them.

Giantbomb seems like one of the more mature sites with one of the best communities about games, seems only natural that real world topics outside of the genre would be discussed occasionally. Even the bombcast crew don't do podcasts for 3 hours talking solely about video games.

And the way you worded your poll i'm not sure how to answer lol, is it yes they don't have a place and no they do?

If you prevent users from attempting to have civil discussions about complex topics then you cultivate a vapid, childish userbase.

Fuck you! How dare you question my civility!

I'm sorry, I just get so irrational whenever someone says I can't be civil and rational.

agreed

It's called off-topic for a reason. We should be able to discuss everything! Nothing is taboo!

Aside from the confusingly worded question ("Do you think they don't have a place"?), I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's rare to see a religious person leaping up and preaching to the masses. More often it's someone making a nasty dig at religion out of nowhere, which prompts religious folks to go "Hey man...". A fight ensues, which almost always ends with "See? Friggin religious wackos!"