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Followup to: Can we have a close reason for “Truth Questions”?

We need some concise, and very new-user friendly verbiage for the new close reason, related to "Truth Questions" (of which Is X a sin? is a prominent subsection).

Please keep responses limited to 400 total characters.

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  • perhaps we could say something like: This site is dedicated to explaining the teachings of differing denominations, we do not verify the veracity of any of those teachings
    – BYE
    Commented Mar 17, 2014 at 14:05

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Questions asking for the truth or validity of a particular doctrine or belief (aka Truth Questions), and questions asking Is X a Sin? are not a good fit for our site, due to their subjective nature, and the vast number of possible Christian opinions on such topics. See: We can't handle the truth

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  • We really need a link to the proper meta post in the response. I'm not sure which is the best one, David Stratton has a couple of very good posts on the subject and likely using one of his is the best option.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:22
  • Can you provide links to the posts you have in mind? We could always create a new one, too, if necessary.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:33
  • I personally think this is a great response, but the question is a bit more specific than "Truth Questions"--although the answer is pretty closely relevant anyway. Would it be appropriate to edit the question to encompass all "Truth Questions"? Or we could create a new question, and copy that answer.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:35
  • Yeah, that one is excellent. but I am starting to think (looking around a bit), that we may need a comprehensive Q&A that not only outlines the issues, but also has a section with ideas on how to repair the question.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:37
  • According to whom? might do until we add something more comprehensive
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:38
  • @waxeagle: That poses the question well, but doesn't provide a very useful/complete answer.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:40
  • Agreed. We've got some work to do on this.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 18:43
  • I have started a new meta post with the goal of becoming a canonical source of information on how to clean up Truth Questions.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 19:06
  • "Questions asking whether or not a particular doctrine or belief is true" is a bit better. Perhaps even a "Is X true?"
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 10:17
  • @curiousdannii: That is more clear, but also much less often asked. Most commonly people ask things like "Is Jesus the son of God?" Not "Is it true that Jesus is the son of God?" So I'm not sure that most newbiews would recognize they are asking "Is X true?" questions.... but maybe it'd work
    – Flimzy
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 18:24
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My two cents:

This question appears to be asking whether a certain teaching or belief is true. Since there are various opinions on this topic, the question can be re-phrased as "who is right". "Who is right and who is wrong" is off-topic. We focus on what various groups teach, not whether what they teach is right. See: the help page, How we are different than other sites?

or some variation of that...

Try two:

Borrowed partially from @Flimzy, coming in at 398 chars with link:

Questions asking for the validity of a belief are off-topic. Questions are expected to focus on what Christians teach, not whether they are true. For tips on editing this to make it suitable for reopening, see Tips for editing a question to make it suitable for re-opening

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  • Any chance we can get this more concise? We're limited to 400 characters
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 18:24
  • This is missing something about the quality of ultimate truth questions - if there was a group that denied the holocaust we wouldn't want to say that who is wrong and right is off topic. The issue is when questions boil down to proving God exists, or that a text is inspired, or that we understand a text the way God intended it to be understood, or something that can be known only by God.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 22:11
  • @waxeagle - done.
    – David Stratton
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 0:10
  • Your second one is good!
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 6:45
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"God only knows!" There are many questions which we disagree over: Is Jesus God? Does this prophet really speak for God? Is it sinful to do this? These questions are called Truth Questions and are off-topic because what they're really asking is "who is right?" We focus on what various groups teach, not whether what they teach is true. Please read We can't handle the truth for a full explanation.

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