Why the hate for wisdom?

[Diana]

I find people often call things "hate speech" when they don't want to engage the logic someone is putting forth.

I think this is an interesting observation. I have personally expanded my understanding and thinking by looking dispassionately at what someone posts in opposition to my own stance, in subjects that give rise to strong feelings.

Silencing people, like some people in this thread are suggesting admins/mods to do just makes the situation worse, and is the true representation of blockage in my opinion and seems to me very fascist. If you don't allow someone to express themselves, and then debate their ideas, you're just stifling their growth (and your own) which is the opposite of truth sharing in my opinion.

When I see people intimating any kind of restriction on free speech, I will happily speak out against it, because I think it is downright service to self. Obviously if there is a personal attack, action is of course warranted.

I am in agreement. Anagogy has been more direct than me in conveying this.

Obviously moderation is there to monitor the guidelines. Beyond that, it's censorship.

Having said that, if someone is just being unreasonable, and I'm not accusing anyone here, you can always just ignore and not engage. People always have to have the last word. I find most moderation just amounts to silencing people because you don't agree with them. It isn't acceptance, it is just controlling the situation. Obviously personal attacks have to be monitored, but as long as someone is just discussing ideas, in my opinion it should be allowed, even if you think they are "negative ideas". Oftentimes, I've seen people on this forum act like they're "nice" but it was obvious they were just using a thin veneer of positivity to disguise their own selfish manipulative tendencies. So the comments were allowed, but I found their ideas quite repugnant and negative in the extreme.

I agree here too. A great example is the "in regards to eating meat" thread which was active for years and the participation rich. It was closed and replaced by "A Friendly Conversation: Exploring Omnivorous vs. Vegetarian Diet" posted by "admin" apparently in an attempt to control how "nice" everyone would be about a very volatile subject. The irony is that there were many posts vilifying vegetarians in the exact passive-agressive way referred to above. I always thought the value of that thread was great, stirring up all kinds of feelings and conversation and exploration and information, and I was actively against closing it.

I am not blaming the moderators here for closing the thread—they did what they felt they had to do. But I do disagree with the decision. I also agree with Anagogy that if this site was only about green ray, or if we all had to act loving as defined by humans, I would be out, for one because I don't communicate that way nor does it interest me. I prefer honesty and truth. And if that honesty brings up things such as ingrained prejudices, great, because then they see the light of day. It encourages transformation and growth.

I am against censorship. I think it would be sometimes difficult to define what is a personal attack. There are obvious examples; but what about when someone lashes back against the original attack? What about the digs coated in sugar?

I get the difficulty of this. It would take a great deal of detachment to decide what violates the guidelines. And one more thing: whatever the owners of this site want to do, that's with them—it's theirs. I almost quit this site after the "in regards to eating meat" thread was closed, and there were others who did, but I find there is still interesting conversation and exploration of ideas, and I am glad to have a place to openly engage in them.