Very Concerned About MIX

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Comment by sunjana1 on May 15, 2009 at 6:44am

"There is a big internet out there, with communities far bigger than mix that contain far more like minded people (to yourself)"

I think the point here is to reach people who are NOT like-minded. The size of this community may be inviting for that and allow a visibility not available in larger communities - but, as has been noted, is also backfiring because of the lack of support.

Comment by Uncle PretzelFlash on May 14, 2009 at 5:50pm

indeed...... but I cannot speak for Jesus. (disclaimer)

Comment by Uncle PretzelFlash on May 14, 2009 at 4:57pm

Sometimes It feels like we have a need to tell "entities" who deliverl us MESSAGE = "Jesus" "loves" "us"./

Think We have to debate. No need for Debate.
IF input from "Entity" = "Jesus loves you" THEN ANSWER = "Grand, thank you, and bless"
because
Debating is our downfall. No debates. Just happinessZen
"Loser of the debate", IS "one who cares about being right".
ANSWER of "Entity"= ALWAYS>
IF subject replies to MESSAGE: "{any argument, subjective or objective, disagreeing with MESSAGE}
THEN "entity" reply= "It does not matter, I love anyway." Da Capo al Fine.

Comment by Laurence on May 14, 2009 at 3:20pm

Back from Edinburgh now, so Where to start?... where to start?

Ah I know... first of all thanks to Tubius and Sketchy for the acknowledgements :) And tubejay, I know I've been firing with both barrels full of Brian of late, but I'm gonna supply different ammo here, and you'll be very proud of me in the length stakes :P

Now I'll start properly by quoting 3 people, Mark Steel, George Carlin, and our very own Steve Wolf...

From Marks Steel's Solution for religion in modern times

"I was 8 years old and been taught that God flooded the entire planet wiping out everyone except for his 2 mates and their pets because people weren't worshiping him enough, AND THEN that he made Abraham take his son up a mountain to kill him, And that THEN he destroyed an entire city because he didn't like anybody in it, & one woman saw him do it, so he thought "UH OH... a witness" so he turned her into a pillar of salt!! "

And George Carlin from his "kings of bullshit" skit (paraphrasing so that i don't have to type so much) :

"When it comes to Bullshit, you have to stand IN AWE, of religion. It has convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do, Every minute of every day. And he has a list of 10 things he dosn't want you to do. And if you do any of them, he has this special place full of fire, smoke, burning, torture, anguish and suffering where he will send you to live for all eternity..."

This is exactly how it was for me Growing up, It left me scared of doing certain things, scared of the physical changes happening to me, scared of the desires I was experiencing, scared of liking certain movies or certain music, scared of speaking to certain people or social groups, scared of whether The big "G or J" would approve of whatever i was doing at any particular moment in time... SCARED OF EVERYTHING!!, often to the point of tears. And then at one point I felt so down that it finally clicked. I don't want to live like this, no one should!! Then it turned out I had no say in the matter. If I could have thought for myself at the approximate age of 6... months, I'd have said to the priest "Excuse me Father, I'm afraid I don't want to feel bad or guilty about things as I learn & experience my way through life, developing my own thoughts, beliefs, tastes and preferences. I think I'll pass, now put me back in that pram, like a good clergyman".

Now quoting Mix master Stevius...

"we hold the strong conviction that everyone must keep an open mind"

It was the closed-mindedness that Led me to live in fear for most of my young life. Wanting away from that had made me more open minded as a result, I consider myself to have developed into an infinitely more rounded person than I would have been if I stayed on "the true path".

Mark follows up his statement by saying...

"I think the real question is not so much "is there" or "isn't there a god", but more: "if there is one... Who'd want to worship an old bully like that?"

Well said that man!!

George follows this up with the rather simple and brilliant...

"But he loves you!!"

Not only scared, but confused as well, :(

Thinking on the fly here... If George had not mentioned Religion or "big invisible man living in the sky" I'd have drawn the conclusion that he was talking about a husband who domestically abuses his spouse!! :O but i digress :P

Because of this, all this religious posting and praising on mix, like Heizel, does make me feel uncomfortable. Especially considering That there has been much discussion, debate and Ridicule of religion here on mix/fu already, with the majority of us coming to largely negative conclusions.

Time now to do a bit of digging, Quoting our own steve-o (again) :

"Arleen sent out literally hundreds of invites to people in her other networks who also are presumably more interested in religious discussion than what happens on MIX."

Looking directly at Arleen's public Profile, (this is nothing that other people can't see)

She seems quite a Web-active lady in her field, being a member - or dare I say administrator(?) - of those ning groups shown. Another thing that Strikes me is that she's been a member of mix since (at an estimate going by the comments) the end of 2007, then she's only - by comparison- very recently started up here on mix again after an absence of approx 1.5 years.

Now before any Banning is done This is leading me to ask "Why" on several fronts. And Arlene if you are reading this By all means do respond...you've entertained our tubejay on many occasions responding with just as much length as he usually does, (which is an achievement in itself :P ) - lets consider this the Big reveal before the credits to Scooby Doo roll for this particular episode...

1) Why... the absence from actively participating in mix for all this time? And were you even aware of the discussions and blogs about religion taking place during this period?

2) Why... on your recent return did you go on - for want of a better term - the religious offensive, when a simple search of mix could have predetermined how well it would be received?

3) Why... did the newcomers to mix from the above-mentioned ning groups (I recognise some of the profile photos having poked around a bit there) not do that either?

4) Be Honest, are you on some kind of "recruitment drive" for whatever reason? - and if so, what for exactly? And also... Why... are you dedicating/concentrating/directing so much effort, time, & content to what seems like the mix community specifically, There is a big internet out there, with communities far bigger than mix that contain far more like minded people (to yourself), the reasoning behind you persisting with such time and efforts here, is truly a perplexing mystery to me!!

Steve, Zadi, and the entire mix community deserve a genuine answer, As you can see Steve's clearly worried about how to deal with this, and something along the lines of "being called by god to do his work/bidding" Won't cut it, I've been on mix for less time than you have, but I already know we ALL deserve far more credit than that. Speaking personally, if you came up with such a "broken record" response, OR started quoting from the bible in response to these questions, then I would Ban you, but it's not up to me.

There I've said my piece, and done so without linking to my other religious rant... oh bugger!! :P

Comment by Scribner on May 14, 2009 at 1:05pm

i can't help but notice she(arleen-not to single her out) does a different post every day, which doesn't seem that excessive but she is always in the blogs saying basically the same thing. sharing idea is welcomed by epic fu, but not so much sharing the same idea all day, every day. i do agree that it doesn't have relevance to the community, but i don't think banning of ppl is need at this point, but it my be coming.

Comment by Harrison on May 14, 2009 at 7:30am

It's not that they're not welcome, it's more like they have nothing of contextual relevance to add to our community. It's like they're using MIX as their own community. Is it really that hard to set up your own Ning social community? I have nothing against their existence here, but at least pretend to be interested in our show and our culture rather than completely ignoring it, that's just insulting.

Comment by Steve Woolf on May 13, 2009 at 6:40pm

Yeah, I tend to feel that it's more spam than anything else. Arleen sent out literally hundreds of invites to people in her other networks who also are presumably more interested in religious discussion than what happens on MIX. I agree with Tubejay that there is nothing malicious going on, but that it is simply unrelated to anything EPIC FU represents in terms of interest or community.

Comment by madd sketch on May 13, 2009 at 12:34pm

actually let me rethink what i just said lol. Laurence mentioned something on a different thread which was the apps stuff.

Laurence "Given recent content & contributions from both spammers and the festival of life, what maybe a good suggestion (to either yourselves or Ning) would be a digg up/down system for blogs on the front page of mix, that way things like "the second cummin is near" (spot the deliberate mis-spelling) and link spam could be "buried" deep enough below a certain threshold by registered mix members, it could save yourselves (steve and zadi) a lot of work in the process. Just a thought :)"

This way doesn't really reject them at all, but we at least it wont be as in-your-face about it, in a way. I dunno if that makes any sense but yeah ^^

Comment by Laurence on May 13, 2009 at 9:17am

i will respond to this in a bit more detail, because I'm in edinburgh right now ahead of seeing a concert tonight, & I'm writing this on my phone. I'll see if i can find a net cafe anywhere round where i am.

Comment by madd sketch on May 13, 2009 at 5:38am

I've gotten a couple of that actually hehe. but i've just kind of ignored them 'cause i have good tolerance for it. But i do kinda feel like they're in-your-face with their religious beliefs. I really don't think they get what the Fu MIX is really so as bad as this might sound, i say off they should go.